DWIG'HT 

TIUTON 


A  H 


"  AND 


.     .     .     TAKING   HIM   UP   INTO  AN    HIGH    MOUNTAIN   SHEWED 
UNTO    HIM   ALL  THE   KINGDOMS  OF  THE  WORLD" 


ON 

SATAN'S 
MOUNT 

By 


"And  . . .  taking  Him  up  into  an  high  mountain, 

shewed  unto  Him  all  the  kingdoms 

of  the  world." 


Illustrations  by 

CHARLES    H.    STEPHENS 


BOSTON:  C.  M.  CLARK  PUB 
LISHING  COMPANY,  MDCCCCI1I. 


COPYRIGHT 
I  g  o  z  BY 
C.  M.  CLARK 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 

BOSTON,  MASS. 
U  .  S  .  A  . 


ENTERED  AT 
STATIONERS 
HALL  LONDON 
FOREIGN  COPY 
RIGHTS  SECURED 


RIGHTS      OF 

TRANSLATION 
PUBLIC  READ- 
I  N  G  AND 
DRAMATIZATION 
RESERVED 


"  It  is  an  observa 
tion  no  less  just  than 
common,  that  there 
is  no  stronger  test 
of  a  man's  real 
c  h  aracter  than 
power  and  authori 
ty,  exciting  as  they 
do  every  passion, 
and  discovering 
every  latent  vice." 

"  Power,  to  its  last 
particle,  is  duty." 


P 

93; 


£SM% 


2108472 


IMIMIMIMIMIMIMIHIMIMIMIMIHMIMM 

'»O»»  If.  if.  If.  If.  »,»  If.  If*  <a»  rf\  /»•.  Hf.  if.  If.  If. 

v  *  ' 


CHAPTERS 

i 

"The  American  Handicap' ' 
Victor  and  Vanquished  . 
In  the  Paddock  .... 
Four  Against  One   . 
Embers  of  the  Past  . 
Moonlight  and  Shadow 
Indulging  a  Whim  . 
Throwing  Down  the  Gauntlet 
On  the  Palisades 
A  Man  and  His  Castle 
On  the  "Sea  Lion"    .      . 
The  Launching  .... 
"Doc"  Bayles  Tells  a  Story 
A  Day  in  June  .... 
A  Bolt  from  the  Blue    . 
The  Plan  of  Campaign 
A  Commercial  Tragedy 
At  the  Van  Rennsalaer  Low's 
A  Matter  of  Sentiment 
Paternal  Probation   . 
The  Parting  of  the  Ways    . 
Blow  upon  Blow 
A  Snake  in  the  Grass    . 
A  Pledge  to  the  Dead   .      . 
"A  Paper  for  the  People  " 


CHAPTERS 


XXVI.     In  a  New  Field      .      .  242 

XXVII.      Across  a  Human  Sea    .  251 

XXVIII.      The  Power  of  Truth    .  264 

XXIX.      A  Bond  in  Honor  .      .  275 

XXX.      Placing  the  Blame  .      .  289 

XXXI.      The  Truth  at  Last       .  299 

XXXII.      A  Luncheon  Bears  Fruit  312 

XXXIII.  A  New  Portfolio    .      .  323 

XXXIV.  A  Brace  of  Interviews  .  332 
XXXV.     Andrew  Haven's  Even 
ing  Call        .      .      .      .  341 

XXXVI.      Manceuvers  in  Force    .  350 

XXXVII.      Philip  Craig's  Promise  .  358 
XXXVIII.      Memory  Plays  an  Old 

Tune 366 

XXXIX.      In  Cabinet  Meeting      .  376 

XL.      The  Nineteenth  of  April  390 
XLI.      General    MacMahon's 

Pledge 401 

XLII.      The    Arouiing    of    the 

Tiger 413 

XLIII.      Despot  or  Martyr  .      .  424 

XLIV.      "  On  Satan's  Mount  "  436 

XLV.      The  New  Cabinet  .      .  444 

XLVI.      'Neath  the  Evening  Star  456 


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ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT. 

CHAPTER    I. 
"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP." 

THE  trinity  of  earth  and  sky  and  sea,  blessed 
indeed  when  each  is  at  its  fairest,  smiled  in 
most  indulgent  mood  at  the  thousandsof  men 
and  women  who  were  gathered  at  Oceanic  on  a 
certain  day  in  June  to  see  the  running  of  the  great 
est  turf  event  of  the  year,  the  American  Handicap. 
The  human  butterflies  caught  the  infection  of  per 
fect  air,  unclouded  blue,  smooth-shaven,  flower- 
spangled  green  and  far  off  flecks  of  white  on  a 
turquoise  sea.  They  fluttered  and  danced — if  one 
saw  them  from  a  distance — filling  the  gigantic 
steel  pavilion  with  life  and  color.  At  closer  range 
their  laughter  and  chatter  and  screaming  badinage 
smote  the  ear  like  the  noise  of  some  vast  aviary, 
which,  in  fact,  the  great  structure,  of  marvelous 
lightness  and  elegance,  crowned  with  gilded  domes 
and  minarets,  and  colored  in  extraordinary  tints, 
strongly  suggested. 

Through  two  fine  bronze  arches  poured  into  the 
beautiful  enclosure  an  unbroken  stream  of  other 
gaily  dressed  holiday-makers  from  the  great  me 
tropolis  to  the  northwest,  all  come  to  seek  the 

I 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

pleasure  that  men  and  women  ever  find  in  a  con 
test,  and  find  to  the  supremest  in  a  race  of  thor 
oughbreds  upon  which  enormous  sums  of  money 
are  staked.  To  such  a  crowd  the  horse  is  noble 
not  because  he  works,  but  because  he  runs. 

The  variegated  tide  swept  in,  rising  higher  and 
higher  among  the  tens  of  thousands  of  luxurious 
seats  in  the  pavilion,  filling  the  cheaper  enclosure 
with  black  and  restless  waves  and  swirling  about 
the  long,  parti-colored  marquees  where  the  book 
makers  congregated  with  their  stands,  blackboards 
and  little  tin  boxes  of  money.  It  was  within  a  few 
minutes  of  flood,  the  flood  of  a  tide  as  cold  and 
pitiless,  in  the  aggregate,  as  that  of  the  neighbor 
ing  sea. 

Now  and  then  a  dull  roar  came  from  the  pavilion 
as  some  famous  and  popular  patron  of  the  "sport 
of  kings"  was  seen,  or  some  idolized  little  jockey 
walked  past  the  expectant  thousands  with  the  non 
chalance  born  of  long  public  experience. 

The  American  Handicap  had  become  the  most 
potent  racing  event  in  the  country,  some  said  in 
the  world,  because  of  the  prodigal  richness  of  its 
stakes  and  the  growing  desire  of  the  enormously 
wealthy  and  the  socially  and  politically  powerful  to 
figure  in  its  glories. 

The  horse  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
had  only  last  year  been  entered,  but  unsuccess 
fully,  while  the  princes  of  finance  and  industry 
were  regularly  represented  by  their  splendid  sta 
bles.  To  win  the  "American"  had  become  the  sole 
life-ambition  of  many;  it  was  the  English  Derby 
over  again,  lacking  the  romantic  tradition  of  that 
classic  event,  but  now  beginning  to  surpass  it  in  all 
other  respects. 

2 


"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP" 

For  several  years  European  millionaires  and 
potentates  had  sent  over  their  best  in  the  attempt 
to  win  a  prize  so  enormous  as  to  be  welcomed  even 
in  the  cash-box  of  a  prince.  But  thus  far  the 
golden  laurel  had  not  traveled  over-sea. 

To-day  the  country  trembled.  Even  in  the  re 
mote  villages  national  pride,  that  had  grown  to 
centre  itself  so  strongly  about  the  supreme  effort 
of  some  one  beautiful  horse,  was  perturbed  by 
doubt  and  made  less  aggressive  by  fear.  The  fin 
est  animal  in  Europe,  the  winner  of  the  Derby  and 
the  Grand  Prix  of  Paris,  was  even  now  in  the  pad 
dock,  swathed  in  silken  blankets  and  guarded  by  a 
group  of  gorgeously  arrayed  stablemen.  Count 
Sandstrom,  the  young  scion  of  a  long  race  of  great 
financiers,  pawnbrokers  to  kings  and  outfitters  of 
empires,  was  somewhere  in  the  vast  throng  to  see 
his  Barbarossa  beat  the  best  that  America  could 
muster.  The  magic  of  his  very  name,  traditionally 
associated  with  success,  was  enough  to  make  his 
horse  a  favorite  with  those  who  bet  to  win;  even 
those  who  conceived  it  to  be  patriotic  to  back 
American  horseflesh  at  all  hazards  laid  their 
wagers  with  more  self  admiration  than  hope  of 
gain. 

The  musical  call  of  a  bugle  stilled  the  crowd  into 
tense  silence  for  a  moment.  Then  came  a  pande 
monium  of  partisan  cheers  and  hand-clapping  as 
the  gallant  horses  began  their  parade  past  the 
pavilion.  It  was  a  sight  to  fire  the  blood,  this 
proud-stepping  procession  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  highly  developed  animals  in  all  the  brute 
kingdom.  Especially  did  it  bring  light  to  the  eyes 
of  a  sunny-haired  girl,  who  made  one  of  a  little 
party  in  a  box  just  opposite  the  finish  wire.  With 

3 


GN  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

lips  slightly  parted  and  a  deepening  color  on  her 
cheeks  she  watched  the  review,  carefully  scrutiniz 
ing  each  horse,  until  at  last  a  tall  black,  with  ears 
viciously  laid  against  his  head,  danced  past. 

"Ah,  splendid  old  Dandy,"  murmured  the 
young  girl,  "this  is  your  hour  for  doing!  Don't 
fail  us!" 

But  the  big  black,  it  was  evident,  did  not  con 
trol  a  large  share  of  popular  approval.  The  ele 
gance  of  Barbarossa,  Count  Sandstrom's  hand 
some  chestnut,  forced  the  applause  of  many;  the 
lithe  energy  of  Regulus,  the  bay  on  whom  the 
hopes  of  the  country  rested,  brought  forth  a  salvo 
of  encouragement ;  the  splendid  action  of  the 
rather  undersized  Hector,  of  the  famous  Arm 
strong  stables,  won  its  recognition,  and  there  were 
Nebula,  a  brave  gray  mare,  and  Hottentot,  a  win 
ner  of  many  of  the  season's  lesser  events,  to  be 
greeted  by  their  respective  fallowings.  The  pa 
vilion  trembled  with  the  combined  tumult  of  all 
the  factions.  To  add  to  the  din  the  "touts,"  frantic 
purveyors  of  "tips,"  fantastically  arrayed  in  garb 
of  Indians,  cowboys,  army  officers  and  farmers, 
made  their  last  appeals  for  the  sale  of  the  abso 
lutely  certain  knowledge  of  the  outcome  of  the 
race  contained  in  the  bunches  of  envelopes  they 
waved  enticingly  in  their  hands. 

"Ain't  he  a  beauty?"  cried  a  little  man  whose 
thin,  sharp  face  spoke  of  an  age  that  was  almost 
belied  by  his  youthfully  shrill  voice.  "Regulus'll 
win  held  up." 

"Win !"  echoed  his  fat  stable  comrade  contempt 
uously,  "yes,  he'll  win  all  right  if  all  the  other 
hosses  drops  dead.  Not  otherwise;  see?  There's 


"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP" 

nothin'  in  it  to-day  but  that  blasted  Dutchman's 
Barbarossa." 

The  argument  then  left  horses  and  verged  on 
personalities.  From  that  point  the  transition  to 
fisticuffs  was  rapid  and  easy;  then  the  warm  parti 
sans  were  hustled  off  the  track  to  continue  their 
battle  at  leisure. 

It  was  now  the  final  moment  for  the  "commis 
sioners,''  and  they  swarmed  through  the  pavilion 
and  in  front  of  the  boxes  to  take  the  wagers  of 
those  who  could  not  or  would  not  go  to  the  ring. 
One  of  this  gentry,  a  tall,  sallow  young  man,  with 
thick  sheets  of  bank  bills  tucked  between  his  fin 
gers,  seemed  a  special  centre  of  attraction.  He 
whispered  something  in  the  ear  of  a  red-faced 
gentleman  whose  stoutness  was  successfully  accen 
tuated  by  a  glaring  plaid  coat. 

''It  can't  be,"  snorted  the  stout  man,  "I'll  go  to 
the  ring  and  see  for  myself."  And  he  was  followed 
by  a  nervous  crowd  of  small  bettors,  for  he  was  a 
well  known  plunger,  and  his  lead  was  worth  ob 
serving. 

The  sallow  messenger  of  the  bookmakers 
wended  his  way  to  the  row  of  elaborately  deco 
rated  boxes.  He  scanned  the  long  line  of  gor 
geous  toilets  and  jaunty  garments  of  "horsey" 
men,  as  if  in  search  of  some  desired  face.  Then  he 
nervously  elbowed  a  path  to  the  box  wherein  sat 
the  bright-haired  girl,  whose  classically  pure  con 
tour  of  face  seemed  not  wholly  in  its  natural  en 
vironment.  Something  of  the  sort  even  the  runner 
thought  as  he  looked  with  admiration  at  her  fresh 
beauty ;  but  his  errand  was  not  to  worship  feminine 
loveliness.  He  touched  his  hat  respectfully  to  a 
large-framed  man  whose  smooth-shaven  face  was 

5 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

just  then  as  cold  and  impassive  as  the  mask  of  one 
dead.  A  mere  glint  of  recognition  came  into  his 
eyes. 

"Well,  Smithers,  how's  the  betting?  What  are 
the  odds?"  he  asked  in  a  tone  as  dully  monotonous 
as  that  of  a  man  droning  a  chant. 

"Hottentot,  ten  to  one;  Nebula,  ten  to  three; 
Hector,  five  to  three;  Regulus,  five,  four;  Barba- 
rossa,  even  money;  King  Capital,  four  to  five." 

"Ah." 

Only  one  word,  and  not  a  shade  of  expression  in 
it.  It  might  have  been  a  comment  on  the  price  of 
iron  in  Mars. 

But  the  girl  clapped  her  hands  and  threw  a 
glance  of  delight  at  the  messenger  that  stirred  the 
heart  in  his  thin  body. 

"Oh,  isn't  it  splendid?"  she  cried.  "Dear  old 
Dandy  the  favorite;  of  course  he'll  win  now." 

"Hush,  Helen,"  said  a  plain-faced,  soberly 
dressed  little  woman  by  her  side,  "you  will  attract 
attention,  dear." 

It  was  evident  that  the  report  of  the  quotation 
had  been  heard  in  the  adjacent  boxes.  A  nervous 
shifting  of  men  followed,  and  calls  for  bookmakers' 
agents  were  loud  and  frequent. 

"King  Capital  the  favorite,"  growled  a  dapper, 
nervous  young  man  in  immaculate  white,  "why, 
he's  a  rank  outsider." 

"He  was,  you  mean,"  returned  the  messenger 
grimly,  "but  in  the  last  ten  minutes  someone  has 
been  pouring  oceans  of  'stuff  in  on  him,  and 
they've  got  the  'bookies'  played  to  a  standstill. 
Hello,  Jenkins,  let's  hurry  back." 

This  last  to  another  young  man  armed  like  him- 


"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP" 

self  with  betting  book,  pencil  and  money.     To 
gether  they  made  their  way  rapidly  to  the  ring. 

"What  was  'John  Peter'  asking  you?"  queried 
the  newcomer. 

"Who,  Norton?  Is  that  'John  Peter'?"  replied 
the  other,  incredulously. 

"Sure  it's  'John  Peter.'  'Spose  he  inquired  how 
his  King  Capital  stood.  Just  as  if  he  didn't  know !" 

The  news  of  the  complete  reversal  of  opinion  in 
the  betting  ring  spread  with  characteristic  rapidity 
through  the  pavilion  where  winged  rumor  always 
seemed  to  have  double  her  usual  pinions.  There 
was  a  wild  scramble  to  hedge,  a  stampede  of  those 
to  whom  money  was  the  all  in  all  of  sport.  The 
clear  notes  of  the  bugle  calling  the  horses  for  the 
start  urged  them  to  greater  speed ;  they  would  lose 
the  spectacle,  but  save  their  precious  stakes.  And 
so  the  rout  went  on. 

Helen  Norton  gazed  with  entranced  interest  at 
the  unfamiliar  scene.  To  her  it  was  the  acme  of 
picturesque  social  activity.  A  lover  of  horses  from 
girlhood,  and  the  mistress  of  many  not  noted  for 
sweetness  of  disposition,  this  was  her  first  race. 
She  took  a  sensuous  delight  in  the  myriads  of 
beautiful  toilets,  the  stirring  music  of  the  fine  mili 
tary  band,  the  atmosphere  of  luxury  and  rank  that 
surrounded  her.  The  perfectly  conditioned  track, 
circling  about  like  a  broad  band  of  brown  velvet, 
appealed  to  her  horsemanship.  Ah,  to  gallop  a 
favorite  thoroughbred,  or  perhaps  her  cherished 
mustang  around  that  oval  at  full  speed ! 

But  here  were  the  horses  at  the  barrier,  snort 
ing,  pirouetting,  tossing  their  heads  in  the  air. 
The  midgets  in  the  saddles,  garbed  in  all  the  hues 
of  the  rainbow,  wheeled  and  wheeled  again  to  gain 

7 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  favored  position,  until  their  silken  jackets 
formed  a  kaleidoscope  of  color.  In  all  this  riot  of 
tint  the  peculiar  dress  of  the  jockey  who  rode 
King  Capital  was  most  striking.  Black  he  was 
from  head  to  foot,  and  as  he  clung  closely  to  his 
black  mount  it  seemed  as  if  horse  and  rider  were 
one.  The  wiseacres  shook  their  heads  dismally; 
no  stable  that  flaunted  such  gloomy  colors  could 
hope  to  win  a  race ;  much  more  cheering  was  the 
resplendent  jacket  of  pure  gold  thread  emblazoned 
with  the  dark  blue  crest  of  Count  Sandstrom. 
Yes,  Barbarossa  was  the  horse;  America  was 
beaten.  Thus  the  superstitious. 

A  touch  of  an  electric  button  by  the  starter,  and 
the  wire  barrier  shot  suddenly  into  the  air.  Then 
that  cry  as  old  as  racing,  and  yet  as  new  as  each 
forward  plunge  of  gallant  steeds: — 

"They're  off!" 

It  was  a  perfect  start,  and  for  a  moment  the 
glistening  backs  of  the  horses  formed  a  straight 
line  as  one  looked  across  them  to  the  green  be 
yond.  Then  Hector,  of  the  Armstrong  stables, 
shot  out  from  the  ruck  and  took  the  pole  from 
Regulus.  A  roar  from  his  adherents  greeted  the 
performance.  So  to  the  first  turn  they  flew,  well 
bunched.  There  daylight  showed  between  Regu 
lus  and  Barbarossa,  but  only  for  an  instant,  for  the 
golden  clad  jockey  began  to  use  the  whip  thus 
early.  The  punishment  was  effective ;  the  splendid 
chestnut  stallion  closed  up  the  gap,  passed  Regu 
lus,  and  was  neck  and  neck  with  Hector  as  the 
horses  entered  the  far  stretch. 

Close  behind  the  three  and  on  even  terms  ran 
Hottentot  and  Nebula,  while  King  Capital 
brought  up  the  rear.  It  was  a  sight  to  bring  a 

8 


"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP' 

choking  of  the  throat  to  those  who  had  bet  on  the 
lately  made  favorite.  Into  one  girl's  voice  tears 
did  come. 

"Oh,  father,"  she  faltered,  "are — are  we  going 
to  lose?" 

"Who  knows,  Helen?"  the  man  replied  calmly. 
"There  are  still  probably  fifty-nine  seconds  left. 
Much  can  be  done  in  fifty-nine  seconds.  I  have 
made  a  half-million  in  much  less  time." 

Far  over  in  the  back  stretch  was  now  seen  a 
struggle  that  made  the  great  crowd  silent  through 
the  very  intensity  of  excitement.  The  brave  little 
Hector  was  again  in  the  lead,  with  Regulus  and 
Barbarossa  neck  and  neck  close  behind.  Then 
arose  a  cry  of  dismay  mingled  with  curses.  Over 
and  over  in  a  frightful  heap  rolled  the  gray  mare 
Nebula,  writhed  frantically  for  a  moment,  regained 
her  feet  and  galloped  aimlessly  back  toward  the 
first  turn.  But  the  little  jockey  did  not  rise. 
Those  with  glasses  could  see  the  pale  blue  of  his 
jacket  prone  and  still  amid  the  dust.  Then  no  one 
looked  again. 

For  suddenly  out  from  the  undulating  mass  of 
horseflesh  swerved  the  gigantic  black  as  if  pro 
pelled  by  some  enormous,  invisible  force.  Past 
the  big  bay  Regulus,  plainly  laboring  now,  he 
flew ;  his  nose  seemed  to  touch  the  flank  of  the 
little  Hector  and  slide  silently  along  the  body  inch 
by  inch.  A  thunderous  shout  burst  from-  thrice 
ten  thousand  throats : — 

"King  Capital ;  King  Capital — Ah-h — A  winner 
— No,  no — Barbarossa — Hector — The  whip,  the 
whip  P 

Again  his  rider  was  punishing  Barbarossa,  and 
again  the  splendid  spirit  of  the  thoroughbred  an- 

9 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

swered  to  the  whip  as  they  thundered  into  the 
homestretch.  Regulus  had  shot  his  bolt  and  was 
merely  cantering.  But  Hector  of  the  unconquered 
will  still  put  forth  every  ounce  of  strength  there 
was  in  him,  and,  with  bloody  nostrils-  and  foaming 
ilanks,  was  doing  his  desperate  best  to  keep  Count 
Sandstrom's  horse  from  passing  him.  But  the 
huge  stride  and  greater  strength  of  the  chestnut 
were  having  the  inevitable  result. 

"Barbarossa,  Barbarossa,"  roared  the  multitude. 
It  was  like  a  cheer  for  some  great  personage;  it 
was  a  people's  tribute  to  a  conquering  stranger. 
But  it  was  the  last. 

Just  as  the  final  furlong  was  before  the  nearly 
spent  leaders,  the  black  rider  raised  his  arm  for  the 
first  time,  and  laid  one  savage  welt  across  the  flank 
of  the  black  horse.  The  great  animal  sprang  for 
ward,  quivering  with  anger  and  outraged  pride. 
With  a  burst  of  speed  never  before  seen  at 
Oceanic,  an  almost  incredible  dash  long  famous 
in  its  annals,  he  passed  Hector,  drew  up  on  Bar 
barossa  and,  in  the  wild  pandemonium  of  frantic 
human  things,  pushed  his  reeking  nose  past  the 
chestnut's  head,  the  victor. 

The  cheers,  the  blaring  of  the  band,  the  shower 
ing  of  flowers  upon  King  Capital's  jockey  as  he 
came  up  for  the  weighing  in,  were  all  the  manifes 
tations  of  a  national  pride  that  still  existed  in  the 
matter  of  sport.  America  had  triumphed  over  the 
supreme  challenge  of  the  old  world.  King  Capital 
had  not  been  a  popular  favorite,  yet  he  had  proven 
himself  a  champion  when  the  country  was  in  need. 
Popular  idolatry  is  an  easy  thing  at  the  right 
moment  and  the  right  place,  and  the  throng  fell 


10 


"THE  AMERICAN  HANDICAP" 

down  and  worshiped  a  black  horse.  But  this  John 
P.  Norton,  the  owner,  who  and  where  was  he? 

Down  in  the  box  in  front  a  sunny-haired  girl 
was  flinging  her  arms  about  the  neck  of  a  tall, 
large-featured  man,  and  a  sweet-faced  woman  was 
smiling  in  silent  happiness.  The  man  whose  horse 
had  won  the  American  Handicap  neither  smiled 
nor  frowned.  Victory  no  more  changed  his 
countenance  than  had  the  threat  of  defeat.  Even 
the  quiet  young  man  who  had  sat  with  the  party 
felt  impressed  by  the  older  man's  absolute  self- 
control.  A  stoical  winner  of  the  "American !"  It 
was  a  paradox  in  which  he  might  have  seen  the 
earnest  of  what  was  to  come  in  another  and  a  far 
different  battle.  He  glanced  at  the  charmingly 
exuberant  girl  and  mused,  oblivious  to  the  gay 
stir  that  swirled  about  him.  He  was  aroused  by 
the  even  tones  of  Norton. 

"Come,  Harriet,"  said  the  man  who  knew  that  in 
to-morrow's  prints  he  \vould  figure  as  the  hero  of 
the  American  Handicap,  "we'll  go  over  to  the 
clubhouse  and  have  dinner.  You'll  join  us,  of 
course,  Craig." 


ii 


CHAPTER  II. 

VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED. 

THE  great  dining  room  of  the  clubhouse  was 
rapidly  filling  as  the  Norton  party  entered 
and  was  escorted  to  a  table  near  a  large  win 
dow  by  the  pompous,  over-decorated  negro  head- 
butler.  As  this  functionary  inarched  down  the 
room  at  the  head  of  the  little  company  he  felt  that 
this  was  also  his  day  of  triumph ;  he  knew  that  the 
big  man  behind  him  was  the  target  for  every 
glance,  as  his  name  and  fame  had  but  a  moment 
before  been  the  theme  of  every  tongue.  He  knew, 
also,  that  the  news  had  already  flown  across  space 
to  every  quarter  of  the  world;  he  was  pilot  to  a 
man,  who  for  the  moment  was  more  than  kings, 
and  his  African  heart  rejoiced. 

"John  Peter,"  new  as  he  was  to  racing,  was  no 
unfamiliar  figure  in  the  world  of  finance  and 
achievement.  His  strong-featured  face  flashed 
into  the  first  pages  of  the  newspapers  at  the  least 
excuse,  while  his  name  was  synonymous  with  cold 
and  relentless  force  joined  with  unlimited  money 
power.  His  sobriquet  had  followed  him  from  the 
west,  which  had  ceased  its  ability  to  attract  when 
he  had  conquered  it.  To  New  York,  that  inevita 
ble  Mecca  of  the  princes  of  Mammon,  he  had  come 
several  years  before,  armed  with  millions  and  a 
great  conviction  of  his  own  infallibility.  He  chose 
his  battle-ground  with  all  the  care  of  a  skilful 

12 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

general.  London,  he  saw,  had  lost  its  old-time 
supremacy;  Berlin  was  now  the  strongest  rival  of 
the  American  treasure-city,  and  Norton  knew  that 
she  must  either  be  cajoled  into  alliance  or  crushed 
into  submission ;  which,  no  man  could  yet  foresee. 
He  decided  to  cast  his  fortunes  with  New  York. 

John  Peter  Norton  had  gone  far  since  he  had 
come  in  from  the  west,  with  none  of  the  legendary 
western  breeziness  and  bonhomie.  Stern,  self- 
centred,  emotionless,  he  had  elbowed  his  way  into 
the  forefront  of  the  financial  leaders  of  Wall 
Street,  stopping  neither  at  the  hurts  of  others,  nor 
at  his  own  occasional  wounds.  He  loved  the 
smell  of  battle.  From  little  skirmishes,  in  which 
he  never  knew  defeat,  he  sprang  into  wars  of 
finance,  and  overthrew  Titans.  Then  men  saw 
that  he  must  be  reckoned  with,  and  he  was  called 
into  the  councils  of  the  great  by  the  very  force  of 
their  own  necessities. 

But  an  ordinary  seat  among  the  rulers  did  not 
satisfy  "John  Peter."  His  gaze  was  fixed  on  the 
supreme  place  of  power,  the  throne,  as  it  were,  of 
the  realm  of  money.  He  soon  found  that  it  was 
not  to  be  seized,  nor  even  bought.  He  must  win 
the  confidence,  the  personal  and  social  friendship 
of  the  millionaires  of  tradition.  They  had  their 
price,  but  it  was  not  represented  by  the  writing  on 
a  cheque. 

To  some  of  them  he  was  of  the  "nouveaux 
riches,"  and  was  often  made  to  feel  the  stigma  in 
disagreeble  ways.  He  had  been  blackballed  by  a 
famous  yacht  club,  merely  as  a  matter  of  "princi 
ple;"  his  wife  had  been  refused  inclusion  among 
the  patronesses  of  a  great  charity  ball,  although  he 
had  clearly  expressed  a  desire  that  she  should  be 

13 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

honored.  He  winced,  but  was  shrewd  enough  to 
see  that  the  ramparts  of  society's  forces  must  fall 
if  assailed  in  season  and  out  with  golden  ammuni 
tion. 

For  the  conventional  social  life  of  the  metropolis 
he  had  supreme  contempt ;  he  would  use  it  simply 
because  it  was  a  part  of  his  scheme,  just  as  a  cour 
tier  might  play  the  fool  to  win  state  secrets. 

Norton's  horse,  too,  was  merely  his  servant ;  for 
the  winning  of  the  American  Handicap  he  would 
have  cared  nothing,  had  it  not  suddenly  thrust  him 
forward  a  long  way  on  the  path  to  his  goal.  A 
million  dollars  could  not  buy  King  Capital  now; 
"John  Peter"  could  be  grateful  for  great  effort — 
when  it  had  proved  successful. 

His  presence  in  this  splendid  and  exclusive  club 
house  to-day  was  evidence  that  his  campaign  had 
begun  to  succeed.  But  he  had  fought,  as  usual. 

"If  I  were  you,  Norton,"  volunteered  a  friend 
one  day  with  some  trepidation,  "I  wouldn't  push 
this  Oceanic  business.  I  get  it  from  some  of  the 
members  that  they're  going  to  blackball  you ;  that 
would  be  deucedly  unpleasant,  you  know." 

"I  don't  believe  they  will,"  returned  "John 
Peter"  curtly. 

"Why  not?"  asked  the  other,  impressed  by  the 
tone  of  the  millionaire. 

"Because,  sir,  I  have  bought  and  hold  a  majority 
of  the  bonds  of  the  Association.  If  I'm  black 
balled,  I'll  sow  the  race-course  down  to  wheat. 
Just  tell  'em  that,  if  you  will." 

Norton's  physical  characteristics  well  bore  out 
what  men  said  of  him  as  a  financier.  He  was  in  the 
early  fifties,  tall,  ruggedly  and  rather  squarely 
made,  and  possessed  of  the  long,  striding,  almost 

14 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

slouching  walk  acquired  on  the  plains.  His 
smooth-shaven  face  was  of  the  eagle  type,  \vith  its 
large  aquiline  nose,  its  cold,  yellowish-brown 
eyes  and  its  two  thin  strips  of  almost  curveless  lips. 
In  all  the  years  of  his  career  no  one  of  his  associ 
ates  had  ever  seen  him  laugh  heartily;  nor  was 
there  any  one  who  could  say  that  he  had  ever 
stormed  in  anger.  In  moments  of  great  mental 
tension  he  had  a  way  of  compressing  the  thumb  of 
his  left  hand  under  the  curling  strength  of  the 
forefinger,  till  circulation  ceased,  and  a  livid  white 
band  testified  to  the  power  of  his  emotion.  Such 
a  band  might  have  been  seen  only  a  few  minutes 
before,  when  King  Capital  was  in  the  ruck  on  the 
race-course  of  the  Oceanic. 

The  Norton  party  had  scarcely  settled  them 
selves,  and  given  their  directions  for  dinner,  when 
a  little  plump  gentleman  sidled  up  to  their  table  as 
if  distrustful  of  the  polished  floor.  Benevolence 
beamed  through  his  big,  round  spectacles  as  he 
awkwardly  thrust  his  hand  in  the  direction  of 
John  Norton. 

"Ah,  my  dear  Norton,  I  trust  my  congratula 
tions  will  not  bore  you.  A  phenomenal  victory, 
really.  And  you,  Airs.  Norton ;  this  must  be  a 
source  of  great  pride  to  you.  Eh?  Yes,  to  be 
sure." 

''Any  success  of  Mr.  Norton's  is  a  pride  to  me," 
returned  the  lady,  with  a  smile. 

"You  see,  Andrew,"  observed  Norton,  "that  my 
wife  differs  from  the  crowrd.  With  them  my  suc 
cess — rather  my  horse's  success — is  only  another 
affront  to  their  self-esteem.  You've  doubtless  just 
been  hearing  a  lot  of  uncomplimentary  remarks 
about  me." 

15 


OAV  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

The  other  protested  feebly,  and  his  blush  still 
further  weakened  his  denial.  Andrew  Haven  liked 
Norton,  whom  he  had  first  met  several  years  be 
fore  on  a  trip  to  the  west,  and  he  was  grateful  to 
the  stronger  man  for  financial  help  when  he  was  in 
desperate  straits,  a  help  that  had  saved  him  from  a 
dishonorable  bankruptcy.  In  his  timid  and  awk 
ward  way  he  was  a  Norton  partisan  for  life.  It 
seemed  to  be  his  nature  to  wish  to  be  of  service 
everywhere,  but  so  clumsy  was  he  in  performance 
that  he  appeared  always  on  the  point  of  falling 
over  himself  to  do  a  favor.  In  his  present  con 
fusion  he  suddenly  caught  Helen  Norton's  glance 
of  amusement. 

"And  Miss  Norton?  I  beg  your  pardon" — as 
he  stepped  gingerly  to  one  side — "I  fear  I  am 
incommoding  you — in  your  way,  you  know." 

"Oh,  not  at  all,  Mr.  Haven." 

"And  you  are  pleased,  too,  I  daresay;  yes,  I 
daresay  that." 

"It  was  glorious !"  exclaimed  the  girl,  her  face 
yet  eloquent  of  the  inspiriting  scene.  "Such  beau 
tiful  horses;  such  a  wonderful  picture." 

"But  your  horse :  King — King — " 

"Capital,"  put  in  Norton  drily.  "You  should 
remember  that — although  you  do  forget  the  inter 
est,"  he  added  inaudibly. 

"Yes,  yes,  of  course;  how  stupid  of  me,"  said 
Haven  nervously.  "Capital;  King  Capital.  Yon 
say  nothing  of  him  and  his  victory,  Miss  Norton." 

"Dandy  is  the  dearest  horse  in  the  world.  See, 
I  have  saved  the  best  of  my  candy  for  him." 

"Dandy?"  queried  the  little  man  in  bewilder 
ment.  "I — I  thought — " 

16 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

"Dandy  is  his  pet  name.  It  was  his  real  name 
until  father  changed  it." 

"You  see,  Haven,  it  would  scarcely  do  to  enter 
a  Dandy  for  the  'American/  "  explained  Norton, 
''so  when  he  began  to  show  speed  on  the  ranch  I 
had  his  name  changed.  He  has  justified  his 
new  one." 

"Ha,  ha,"  tittered  the  ever-appreciative  Haven, 
"very  good,  very.  Won  a  pot  of  money  for  you 
to-day." 

Dinner  was  a  notable  function  at  the  Oceanic 
that  day,  and  none  enjoyed  its  brilliancy  and  its 
artistic  prodigality  more  than  the  young  woman 
who  loved  the  winner  of  the  American  Handicap. 
For  the  Norton  party  as  a  whole  it  was  also  an 
occasion  of  gaiety,  in  so  far  as  any  meal  could  be 
gay  with  the  grave,  silent  "John  Peter"  at  one  part 
of  the  round  table,  the  strangely  preoccupied 
Craig  opposite  him  and  the  vapid,  effusive  Haven 
sandwiched  between  the  two  ladies.  At  last,  but 
not  until  the  sweets  had  been  served,  the  girl  grew 
restive. 

"Come  out  to  the  paddock,  father,  do.  I  want 
to  see  Dandy,"  she  pleaded  impulsively. 

"I  cannot  just  yet,  Helen,"  was  the  reply.  A 
few  words,  and  a  negation,  but  uttered  in  a  tone 
that  would  have  sounded  strange  indeed  to  Nor 
ton's  associates  on  the  "street."  "Perhaps  Mr. 
Craig  will  escort  your  mother  and  you." 

The  girl's  blue  eyes  threw  a  pretty  petition  to 
the  straight-limbed  young  man's  dark  ones. 
Again  he  started  as  from  a  revery. 

"It  would  be  a  pleasure  to  me,  I  am  sure,"  he 
replied,  "the  escort  duty  even  more  than  the  see 
ing  of  the  horses." 

17 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

To  tell  the  truth,  Philip  Craig's  preoccupation, 
not  at  all  a  usual  characteristic,  had  much  justifi 
cation.  He  could  hardly  realize  even  now  that 
that  very  morning  he  had  been  summoned  to  the 
office  of  his  chief,  and  offered  the  position  of  pri 
vate  secretary  to  Norton,  a  place  made  vacant  by 
the  hopeless  illness  of  a  trusted  employee  who  had 
held  it  for  twenty  years.  He  knew  that  the  confi 
dential  man  of  "John  Peter"  was  very  near  to 
the  throne.  Full  of  faith  in  himself,  he  had  yet 
wondered  at  his  sudden  elevation.  And  this  social 
recognition,  the  invitation  to  the  race  and  the 
dinner !  It  was  all  very  new  and  surprising. 

As  Craig  and  the  two  women  rose  to  go,  the 
blundering  little  Haven  managed  to  collide  with 
the  pilot  of  the  party.  He  was  profuse  in  apolo 
gies. 

"I  really  beg  your  pardon,  Haven,"  said  Norton 
grimly,  "you  have  not  met  before.  Mr.  Haven, 
this  is  Mr.  Philip  Craig,  my  new  secretary.  Mr. 
Craig,  Mr.  Haven — an  old  friend." 

The  men  performed  the  usual  act  of  salutation, 
not  without  some  difficulty,  owing  to  Mr.  Haven's 
attempt  to  seize  Craig  by  the  left  hand.  They 
murmured  the  stock  phrases  of  alleged  gratifica 
tion. 

"So  you 'are  to  succeed  poor  old  Bennett,"  said 
Haven.  "Well,  his  loss  is  your — well,  doubtless — 
if  I  may  say  it. — elation." 

He  looked  at  Craig  with  a  fixed  expression 
which  he  soon  realized  was  a  stare.  Amid  his 
stammered  excuses  the  trio  bound  for  the  paddock 
escaped  through  the  open  window,  and  were  gone. 

"Craig?     Craig?"  mused  the  small  gentleman; 

18 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

"don't  remember  a  Craig,  ibut  the  face  is  very 
familiar."  Then  aloud  to  Norton: — 

''Nice  appearing  young  man." 

"What  young  man?"  said  the  financier  absent- 
mindedly. 

"Craig — beg  pardon,  I've  forgotten  his  first 
name." 

"Oh,  Philip  Craig.  Yes,  he's  got  the  right  sort 
of  stuff  in  him." 

"Who  is  he?" 

"John  Peter"  looked  at  his  little  friend  curiously 
for  a  moment. 

"Didn't  I  tell  you?"  he  asked  with  some  acidity. 
"My  secretary." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  returned  the  other,  employing 
his  full  stock  of  amiable  persistency,  "succeeded 
Bennett,  but — I  beg  your  pardon — who — of  what 
family  is  he?" 

"Don't  know;  never  inquired." 

"But  you — I  really  fear  I'm  rude — but  he  is  to 
be  your  confidential  secretary,  isn't  he?" 

"Certainly." 

"Well,  then,  why— why— " 

"Why  didn't  I  get  a  'character'  with  him,  I 
suppose  you  mean  ?"  returned  Norton  with  a  sneer. 
It  always  angered  him  to  have  the  propriety  of  any 
of  his  actions  doubted.  Haven  cringed. 

"Oh,  not  that ;  of  course,  not  exactly  that.  But, 
if  I  may  say  it,  isn't  it  a  bit i dangerous?" 

"To  trust  a  man  of  whose  antecedents  you 
know  nothing?  I  haven't  found  it  so.  A  man's 
family  is  often  about  the  poorest  possible  guaran 
tee  of  a  man's  metal.  I  have  known  men  .whose 
genealogy  ran  back  to  the  nearest  cross-roads  to 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

the  garden  of  Eden  to  be  the  biggest  sort  of  ras 
cals.  Haven't  you?" 

At  this  forcible  hint  at  his  own  irregularities 
Haven  grew  a  bit  apprehensive.  He  looked  at 
Norton  out  of  the  corner  of  one  eye,  but,  shrewd 
as  he  was  under  his  exterior  of  doddering  sim 
plicity,  he  could  read  nothing  in  the  face  before 
him.  He  decided  not  to  take  offense;  in  fact,  he 
knew  that  although  Norton  could  crush  him  at 
any  moment,  the  .great  man  would  not  do  so  as 
long  as  he  continued  to  be  of  use.  And  to  the 
gospel  of  subserviency  he  vowed  himself  with 
more  than  the  fervor  of. a  nun.  He  would  become 
invaluable,  if  such  a  thing  were  possible. 

"Come  along,  Haven,  let's  go  to  the  smoking- 
room,"  said  Norton  in. his  even,  unaccented  tones. 
"There  are  several  fellows  there  who,  I  know,  are 
dying  to  congratulate  me." 

As  the  big  man  and  his  little  tender  moved  into 
the  crowded  room,  with  its  blue  atmosphere,  its 
hurrying  waiters  and  its  groups  of  devotees  of 
alcohol  surrounding  numerous  small  tables,  there 
was  something  akin  to  a  shout,  and  a  rush  of  many 
to  congratulate  the  hero  of  the  day.  He  shook 
the  hands  of  several,  selecting  those  who  had  up 
to  now  been  most  hostile  to  him.  The  felicitations 
of  friends  were  to  him  superfluities ;  to  be  sought 
out  by  someone  who  had  two  days  before  at 
tempted  his  ruin  was  the  true  gratification. 

Soon  weaned  of  attention,  Norton  took  his  as 
sociate  into  a  retired  bow  window,  and  sat  down 
to  smoke.  He  affected  curious  little  slim  panatella 
cigars,  and  these  he  smoked  only  when  in  good 
humor.  Tobacco  never  appealed  to  him,  as  to 
most  men.  in  times  of  mental  or  physical  disquiet. 

20 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

Now  he  slowly  blew  out  the  fragrant  smoke,  and 
Haven  was 'pleased  at  the  augury. 

It  was  not  long  before  a  fresh  stir  in  the  room 
attracted  their  attention.  The  cause  appeared  to 
be  a  rather  undersized,  but  not  puny  man,  very 
blonde  and  with  immense  moustachios  that  swept 
down  almost  to  the  chin  and  then  curved  upward 
like  scimitars.  He  was  prematurely  bald  as  to  his 
forehead,  and  the  hair  on  the  sides  of  his  head  fell 
in  curls  over  each  ear.  Despite  his  lack  of  height, 
he 'had  an  air  of  great  distinction.  Norton's  keen 
appreciation  of  the  quality  that  makes  a  man  un 
usual  was  quick  to  note  the  newrcomer. 

"Who's  that,  Haven?"  he  asked  brusquely. 

Before  the  question  could  be  answered  the 
blonde  man's  voice  could  be  heard  incisively  above 
the  clatter  of  the  room. 

"Poof;  it  wouldn't  be  so  bad  to  be  beaten,  but 
to  be  beaten  by  such  canaille — 

Andrew  Haven  trembled  with  apprehension. 
He  glanced  at  his  companion's  face,  but  found  it 
as  uneloquent  as  ever.  "Will  nothing  ever  move 
him?"  thought  the  little  man. 

"Who  was  that  speaking,  'Haven?  I  didn't 
quite  catch  his  words." 

"That — er — that  is  Sandstrom,  Count  Sand- 
strom." 

"The  owner  of  Barbarossa?" 

"The  very  man." 

"Well,  I  want  to  meet  him." 

"To — to  meet  him?"  stammered  Haven  in 
affright,  "to  meet  Count  Sandstrom?" 

"Why  not?"  queried  Norton  coldly.  "A  victor 
should  be  magnanimous,  shouldn't  he  ?  There  are 

21 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

things  I  would  like  to  say  to  him.  You  know  him, 
don't  you?" 

"Ye-yes,  but — 

"I  tell  you  I  want  to  meet  him,  Haven.  I  think 
he  is  getting  ready  to  go ;  there  is  no  time  to  lose." 

Haven  caught  the  glint  he  knew  so  well  in  'the 
eyes  of  the  financier.  He  had  purchased  wisdom 
through  experience. 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  and  tiptoed  out  to  the 
group  of  which  Sandstrom  was  the  centre. 

"John  Peter"  was  already  fairly  well  informed 
as  to  the  Count's  position  in  life.  He  knew  that 
the  German  was  now  nearly  thirty  years  old  and 
was  the  head  of  the  greatest  financial  house  of 
Europe  by  virtue  of  the  recent  death  of  his  father. 
His  "metier"  had  not  yet  been  taken  by  the  bank 
ers  of  the  world,  who  were  uncertain  as  to  what 
his  attitude  in  money  affairs  would  be.  Whether 
he  was  to  be  reckoned  as  a  man  with  great  wealth, 
or  a  man  of  great  wealth — a  pregnant  distinction 
— could  not  at  present  be  determined.  He  was 
pleasure-loving  and  spent  money  freely,  yet  the 
genius  of  his  family  and  the  solidity  of  his  race  had 
kept  him  from  excesses.  In  his  clear  and  frank 
blue  eyes  Norton  thought  he  saw  something  worth 
respecting.  In  a  moment  more  'Haven  \vas  bring 
ing  the  nobleman  to  the  window. 

"This  is  Count  Sandstrom,  Mr.  Norton.  Count, 
you  of  course  know  Mr. 'Norton  by  reputation." 

"Ah,  the  owner  of  King  Capital?" 

Norton  bowed  gravely. 

"I  wanted  to  see  you,  Count  Sandstrom,"  he 
began,  "to  tell  you  how  grateful  to  you  are  the 
American  people  and  myself." 


22 


VICTOR  AND  VANQUISHED 

"Grateful?  To  me?"  questioned  the  Count  in 
some  perplexity. 

"To  you,  for  having  given  us  'the  pleasure  of 
seeing  the  finest  race  ever  run  by  a  losing  horse. 
And  furthermore — 

"Ah,  you  are  most  gracious,  my  dear  sir,  most 
gracious.  Some  other  time  I  shall  be  delighted. 
As  for  me,  I  have  now  many  things  to  do.  Au 
revoir."  And  he  bowed  with  extreme  punctilio, 
turned  coolly  on  his  heel  and  walked  away. 

The  affront  was  clearly  noted  by  the  club  habi 
tues,  who  had  been  eager  to  see  the  outcome  of  a 
meeting  between  two  such  men.  Haven,  in  a  spe 
cies  of  panic,  toddled  away  and  out  of  sight. 

"John  Peter"  threw  his  half-consumed  panatella 
out  of  the  window,  and  gazed  somewhat  amusedly 
at  the  white  line  on  his  left  thumb.  Then  he  arose 
to  seek  his  wife  and  daughter  in  the  paddock. 

"There  is  a  man  who  must  either  be  crushed  or 
bought,"  he  said  to  himself. 


CHAPTER    III. 

IN   THE   PADDOCK. 

P)HILIP  CRAIG'S  emotions  as  he  walked 
across  the  rich  green  toward  the  paddock, 
with  his  pretty  charge  and  her  placid  mother, 
were  more  complex  than  any  he  had  yet  known. 
Across  the  calm  of  his  everyday  life  had  suddenly 
swept  the  breeze  of  wealth  and  fashion,  ruffling  it 
in  a  manner  new  and  strange.  From  the  dawn  of 
remembrance  existence  had  been  a  serious  affair 
with  him.  His  boyhood  had- been  regulated  by  his 
father,  a  Scotchman  of  the  old  school  whose  whole 
conduct  of  life  was  circumscribed  by  theories,  and 
his  youth  had  been  completely  outside  the  range 
of  ordinary  pleasures. 

Now  there  came  back  to  him  an  evening  when, 
it  being  his  fifteenth  birthday,  his  father  called  him 
into  the  little  room  that  served  as  a  library,  and 
bade  him  sit  down  in  the  hard  leather  chair  hith 
erto  all  but  forbidden. 

"Philip,  my  lad,"  he  had  begun,  "ye've  had  a 
bit  more  schooling  than  ever  I  did.  Ye're  ready 
to  meet  the  warld.  Ye  can  do  as  pleases  ye  best ; 
bide  along  wi'  me,  or  seek  ye'er  fortune  elsewhere. 
But  if  ye  stay  here  ye  must  pay  your  boord.  My 
faither  said  the  same  to  me  when  I  was  ye'er  age, 
and  it  made  a  mon  o'  me.  If  so  be  ye  choose  this 
place  and  me,  there  are  books,  glide  books,  that 
ye  can  study,  and  I'll  help  ye  all  I  can.  The  more 

24 


IN  THE  PADDOCK 

ye  ken  in  this  warld,  the  better  ye  11  be  off, 'if  ye 
ken  the  richt  things." 

The  books  had  conquered  his  youthful  irresolu 
tion,  had  kept  'him  at  his  father's  side.  Since  he 
had  been  old  enough  to  read  he  had  felt  the  fasci 
nation  of  the  world  that  lay  behind  the  sober  bind 
ings  of  the  library  of  Angus  Craig;  he  longed  to 
explore  the  mysterious  realm  of  bookland,  and 
once  in  a  while  he  was  given  a  brief  little  excursion 
under  his  father's  guidance.  But  he  was  not  to  go 
alone.  Ah,  no.  The  severest  punishment  he  had 
received  was  when  he  had  ventured  to  take  a  book 
from  its 'place  unbidden. 

All  that  had  changed,  he  remembered,  on  the 
day  he  was  given  his  choice  between  the  parental 
roof  and  the  world. 

"My  library,  Philip,  is  a'  that  I  shall  leave  ye 
when  I  dee,"  said  his  father,  "till  then  ye  are  free 
to  use  it  when  ye  will. 

"Ye'll  find  books  gude  schoolmaisters,  lad,  but 
ye  must  be  ye'er  ain  scholar.  They'll  teach  ye 
without  reproof  or  anger,  and  without  price.  If  ye 
stumble  in  ye'er  lessons,  they'll  not  appear  to  note 
it ;  if  ye'er  ignorant,  they'll  not  ridicule  ye.  They'll 
be  ye'er  frien's  if  ye'll  let  them,  but  they'll  never 
force  themselves  on  ye.  Remember  that." 

So  the  boy  had  stayed  in  the  little  cottage  pur 
chased  by  Angus  Craig  when  land  was  cheap,  but 
now  surrounded  by  great  manufacturing  estab 
lishments  and  worth  ten  times  what  the  canny 
Scotchman  had  paid  for  it.  For  the  father's  trade 
of  steel  engraving  he  had  little  taste;  he  preferred 
to  square  the  weekly  parental  debt  by  doing  the 
various  odd  jobs  that  a  bright  boy  can  always  com 
mand.  His  first  year  as  his  own  master  was  rather 

25 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  precarious  one,  but,  as  he  scorned  to  seek  favors, 
it  made  for  a  sturdiness  and  independence  of  char 
acter  that  eventually  brought  him  recognition. 

When  he  was  appointed  carrier  for  a  daily  finan 
cial  bulletin  service,  Philip  considered  that  his  real 
start  in  life  had  been  made.  Having  plenty  of 
spare  time,  he  took  a  special  course  in  the  College 
of  the  City  of  New  York,  his  racial  proclivities 
adding  to  a  general  education  the  practical 
branches  of  typewriting  and  stenography  as  a  pos 
sible  means  of  livelihood.  Through  the  remark 
ably  swift  delivery  of  a  very  important  bulletin  he 
had  come  to  the  notice  of  John  Norton,  who  said 
to  him  one  day  in  a  most  matter-of-fact  tone : — 

"Would  you  like  to  go  to  work  for  me,  Craig?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  had  answered  just  as  calmly. 
"But  how  did  you  know  my  name?" 

"I  know  it  because  it  seemed  to  me  worth  \vhile 
rinding  out."  The  boy  pondered  long  on  that 
reply ;  for  many  years  it  was  to  him  the  rarest  com 
pliment  he  had  ever  received. 

From  errand  boy  he  was  advanced  to  clerk  in 
the  Norton  establishment,  having  one  day  volun 
teered  to  do  the  work  of  an  absent  employee. 
From  post  to  post  of  honor  and  trust  his  keenness, 
his  honesty  and  his  vigor  had  carried  him,  until 
to-day,  at  twenty-six,  he  found  himself  made  a 
peer  of  the  realm  of  finance,  as  it  were,  and  was 
furthermore  invited  to  court  to  meet  a  very  sweet 
and  beautiful  princess.  And  at  this  point  the 
young  Scotchman  smiled  to  find  himself  indulging 
in  a  day-dream,  as  rare  a  recreation  for  him  as  a 
seat  at  the  opera  or  a  dinner  at  the  Oceanic.  Then 
he  heard  the  pleasant  voice  of  Mrs.  Norton  : 

"This  way,  Mr.  Craig,  please.  I  see  Bayles  at 
'26 


LV  THE  PADDOCK 

the  lower  gate  to  let  us  in  apart  from  the  crowd." 

Around  the  paling  of  the  paddock  was  a  thick 
fringe  of  men  and  women,  the  uninfluential  many, 
who  must  stand  on  tiptoe  and  writhe  against  one 
another  in  the  effort  to  peer  through  the  slats  and 
see  the  great  black  horse  that  had  saved  the  day 
for  America.  Craig  noted  their  faces  pressed 
against  the  barrier,  feeble  enough  had  they  wished 
to  destroy  it,  and  a  curious  feeling  of  self-repug 
nance  came  over  him  that  he,  a  man  from  and  of 
the  people,  should  be  admitted  by  the  easy  gate 
way  of  the  rich  while  they  must  be  kept  outside. 

He  now  resigned  his  position  as  escort  to  a  tall, 
thin,  wiry,  sallow  individual  dressed  in  brown 
corduroy  trousers  and  a  blue  flannel  shirt.  'A  wisp 
of  hay  was  stuck  in  the  left  corner  of  his  mouth, 
and  at  it  he  pulled  as  at  a  cigar. 

This  was  Bayles,  the  Norton  trainer,  otherwise 
and  inexplicably  known  as  "Doc."  Diplomaless, 
so  far  as  medical  colleges  went, '-he  was  a  master  at 
his  profession,  a  friend  and  confidant  of  the  horse 
and  a  skilled  and  tender  physician  to  all  equine  ail 
ments.  "More'n  half  hoss  myself,  I  reckon,"  he 
was  often  heard  to  say,  and  indeed  his  long  legs 
and  perfect  poise  as  a  rider  sometimes  made  him 
look  a  very  centaur. 

There  was  a  rumor  about  the  stables  that 
"Doc"  had  once  been  a  cowboy  on  the  western 
plains  before  the  industry  of  raising  cattle  had  been 
forced  into  the  great  Canadian  northwest,  and  as 
a  relic  of  that  past  and  gone  life  he  aroused  the 
liveliest  interest  in  the  training  quarters. 

Helen  Norton  shook  hands  warmly  with  the 
horseman,  and  his  face  grew  a  shade  less  sallow. 

27 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"How  is  dear  old  Dandy?"  cried  the  girl  eagerly. 
"Not  tired,  nor  hurt,  nor — anything?" 

"Tired?  Not  he ;  he  never  turned  a  hair.  He's 
a  glorious  critter,  Miss,  and  Ma'am.  No  wonder 
hunchback  Richard  wanted  to  swop  his  kingdom 
for  a  hoss,  if  they  had  sech  animiles  as  Da — I  mean 
King  Capital — in  them  days.  Here's  the  hoss 
now." 

And  there  he  was,  swathed  in  a  black  blanket, 
walking  placidly  up  and  down  in  tow  of  a  small 
black  stable-boy.  Helen  ran  toward  him,  calling 
his  name  aloud,  and  the  throng  stared  through  the 
pickets  the  harder. 

The  splendid  animal  pricked  up  his  ears  and 
whinnied  at  the  familiar  voice ;  in  another  moment 
he  was  blissfully  munching  the  sweetmeats  re 
served  for  him.  Craig  thought  he  had  rarely  seen 
a  more  attractive  picture  than  the  girl's  fair  head 
in  sunny  relief  against  the  dark  muzzle  of  the 
horse.  He  wondered,  too,  at  her  simplicity;  many 
times  afterward  it  surprised  him,  until  he  learned 
that  Helen  had  led  a  quiet  home  life,  even  her  edu 
cation  being  given  her  by  her  mother,  who  had 
been  a  New  England  schoolmistress  of  unusual 
attainments  before  she  had  gone  west,  eventually 
to  become  the  wife  of  John  Norton. 

"Oh,  there's  Muggsy,"  suddenly  exclaimed  the 
young  woman,  as  a  diminutive  replica  of  the  old 
trainer  ambled  into  view.  He  was  still  clad  in  his 
black  silk,  and  Craig  recognized  him  as  the  jockey 
who  had  ridden  King  Capital  to  victory  under  the 
name  of  Bayles. 

"Muggsy,  you're  a  darling.  I  haven't  any 
candy  left,  but  you  shall  have  a  kiss,"  and  the 

28 


IN  THE  PADDOCK 

pretty  girl  bent  forward  to  reach  the  jockey's  fore 
head,  on  which  she  implanted  a  hearty  smack. 

"Thankee,  Miss,"  he  said,  in  much  the  tone  of  a 
waiter  who  thinks  he  has  received  an  insufficient 
tip. 

"Now  tell  me  all  about  the  race,  Muggsy — just 
how  you  won  it,  and — and  everything." 

''Didn't  yer  see  it  yerself,  Miss?" 

"Why,  of  course,  you  silly.  But  I  didn't  really 
understand  it.  Now  I  want  your  story  of  it. 
Please!" 

Thereupon  the  junior  Bayles  proceeded  to  de 
scribe  the  greatest  race  in  American  history  as  stol 
idly  as  if  he  were  telling  what  he  had  had  for 
breakfast  that  morning. 

"Yer  see,  Miss,  it  was  this  way:  when  the  gate 
went  up  we  all  got  off  together  with  Reg'lus  at  the 
pole.  At  the  near  turn  we  was  all  well  bunched, 
until  Reg'lus  and  Barb'rossa  got  into  a  kind  of 
scrap,  and  I  see  the  Dutch  jock  use  the  braid. 
'Pretty  early,'  thinks  I,  and  I  keeps  Dandy  in, 
'cause  I  knew  there  weren't  nothing  to  fear  in  the 
bunch  behind. 

"By  this  time  we  was  tail-enders,  Dandy  and  me, 
but  Lord  love  ye,  Miss,  I  knew  'twas  only  going  to 
be  so  for  four  seconds.  Then  come  Nebula's  tum 
ble  which  did  for  poor  Dalgren,  and  I  'clicked'  to 
the  boy.  We  left  the  rear  gang  in  one,  two,  three, 
and  crawled  up  on  Reg'lus.  I  smacked  my  lips 
like  you  do  when  you  call  a  bird,  and  then  Reg'lus 
was  a  dead  one.  Then  we  slowed  down  a  bit. 

"Hector  and  Barb'rossa  was  fighting  every  inch 
that  was  in  'em  at  the  three-quarters.  All  at  once 
Hector  swerved  a  bit.  'Now,'  says  I  to  Dandy, 
a  bit  sharp,  and  he  dug  his  heels  into  the  ground 

29 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

and  went  after  Hector.  Myers  looked  at  me,  and  I 
could  see  in  his  face  that  his  mount  was  done. 
'It's  Barb'rossa  now,  Dandy,'  says  I,  raising  my 
voice  a  little  and  patting  his  neck. 

"Then  the  jays  in  the  grand-stand — beggin' 
your  pardon,  Miss — sets  up  a  holler  of  'Barb'rossa, 
Barb'rossa,'  and  Dandy  he  hears  it  and  begins  to 
feel  a  bit  worried.  'It's  all  right,  boy,'  says  I  in  his 
ear,  'we've  got  him  licked  for  sure.'  Then  I 
tapped  him  once  with  the  whip,  just  to  show  him 
that  I  was  in  earnest,  like,  and  looked  to  the  right. 
I  could  just  see  Barb'rossa's  nose.  Then  I  hears  a 
bigger  yell  than  the  one  before,  and  straightens  up. 
'Dandy,  you're  a  prince,'  I  says.  He  whinnied  a 
bit  and  come  down  to  a  canter.  And  that's  all 
about  it,  Miss." 

"Muggsy,  you're — you're  a  hero !" 

"Thankee,  Miss;  I  rode  for  all  there  was  in  it, 
sure." 

"There,  now,"  broke  in  the  parental  Bayles, 
"don't  go  a-swelling  your  head  over  it,  Muggs. 
Better  take  the  hoss  down  to  the  stables." 

"Oh,  may  I  ride  him  down?"  asked  the  girl  ex 
citedly. 

"Why,  Helen,  child,  before  all  these  people?" 
replied  the  mother  gently. 

"Well,  I  suppose  not,  with  these" — flirting  her 
skirts  rather  viciously.  "If  I  only  had  my  habit. 
But  I'll  go  down  behind  the  stables.  I  must  have 
just  a  canter.  I've  not  been  on  Dandy's  back  in 
a  year." 

It  was  a  triumphal  procession  that  accompanied 
the  gallant  horse  to  the  stables,  Helen  and  Muggsy 
acting  as  bodyguard,  and  Craig,  Mrs.  Norton  and 
Bayles  proceeding  more  at  leisure. 

30 


IN  THE  PADDOCK 

"I  suppose  you  love  horses,  Mr.  Bayles?"  ob 
served  Craig,  with  the  conventional  desire  to  be 
agreeable  to  a  new  acquaintance. 

"Love  'em?"  replied  the  trainer  fervently,  "you 
may  well  say  that,  sir.  When  I  was  a  cow-puncher 
forty  years  ago  a  horse  was  sometimes  the  only 
intelligent  critter  I  saw  for  months.  Love  'em ! 
Lord  bless  you,  they're  the  best  comrades  a  man 
can  have.  Some  may  run  away,  but  it's  because 
they've  been  badly  treated  by  somebody  before, 
and  they  don't  always  know  the  difference  between 
men.  But  there,  I'm  like  the  feller  Shakespeare 
tells  about  who  'doth  nothing  but  talk  of  his 
horse.'  '* 

Craig  smiled  in  spite  of  himself.  Here  was  an 
anomaly  worth  observing  more  carefully.  "Shake 
speare  is  evidently  a  favorite  of  yours,"  he  re 
marked  pleasantly. 

"Yes,  sir!  There  was  a  man  who  loved  horses ; 
he  knew  'em.  I  never  see  a  man  in  a  temper  but 
I  think  of  what  he  said :  'Anger  is  like  a  full  hot 
horse,  who,  being  allowed  his  way,  self-mettle  tires 
him.'  Then  there  was  that  king  who  went  about 
crying:  'Give  me  another  horse.' ' 

"Mr.  Bayles  is  quite  a  student,"  put  in  Mrs. 
Norton,  with  whom  the  trainer  was  clearly  on  very 
pleasant  terms.  "He  has  a  whole  trunk  full  of  the 
poets." 

"Indeed!" 

"Yes,  sir,"  assented  Bayles,  "and  all  the  pas 
sages  about  hosses  is  marked." 

"And  what  do  you  think,"  laughed  the  matron, 
"he  has  hay  between  the  leaves  at  the  marked 
places." 

"Yes,  ma'am ;  that's  to  find  the  hoss-talk  easy." 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"I  should  think  it  would  be  safer  to  turn  down 
the  leaves." 

"It  might,  ma'am,  but  I  wouldn't  take  such  a 
liberty  with  the  poets." 

At  the  stables  the  tall  form  of  John  Norton 
strode  forward  to  meet  them.  From  an  inside 
pocket  he  took  a  blue  envelope  which  he  handed 
to  the  elder  Bayles.  The  trainer  opened  it  and 
gazed  at  the  little  strip  of  yellow  paper  it  con 
tained.  Then  he  passed  it  back  to  Norton. 

"A  big  sum  of  money,  sir,"  he  said  quietly. 

"It's  the  handicap  stake,  Doc." 

"I  see  it  is,  sir." 

"It's  for  you — and  Muggsy." 

"For  me  and  Muggsy !"  exclaimed  the  trainer  in 
amazement.  He  was  used  to  the  ways  of  his  mil 
lionaire  employer  by  this  time,  but  the  tender  of 
such  a  fortune  staggered  even  him.  "For  me  and 
Muggsy !  Why — why,  no.  Why  should  we  have 
it?" 

"Spoils  of  victory,  Doc." 

"But  I  was  not  the  victor." 

"True,  it  was  the  horse.  But  he  cannot  cash 
checks.  You've  made  him  what  he  is — you  and 
Muggsy — and  the  money  shall  be  yours." 

The  attention  of  the  friendly  disputants  was  at 
this  point  attracted  by  the  sight  of  a  fair-haired 
young  girl  galloping  about  the  space  back  of  the 
stables  on  a  powerful  black  horse  that  bore  a  re 
markable  resemblance  to  the  winner  of  the  "Amer 
ican."  The  young  woman's  flying  draperies 
accentuated  the  slender  grace  of  her  figure,  while 
the  pretty  feet  that  now  and  then  flashed  into  view 
by  no  means  marred  the  picture.  It  was  not  long 
before  horse  and  rider  bore  down  upon  the  group 

32 


IN  THE  PADDOCK 

at  a  furious  pace,  and  drew  up  with  a  half-wheel 
that  excited  Doc  Bayles'  liveliest  approval. 

"Oh,  father,"  called  out  the  flushed  and  happy 
girl,  "won't  you  give  me  Dandy  for  my  very 
own  ?" 

"What,  are  you  going    to    turn    sportsman?" 
asked  the  financier  quizzically. 

"No,  no,  you  goose" — Craig  actually  winced— 
"but  he  is  such  a  lovely  saddle  horse." 

"Why,  young  lady,  I  had  thought  of  selling  him. 
I  am  done  with  racing,  and  I  suppose  we  ought  to 
get  rid  of  him  in  some  way,  oughtn't  we,  Doc?" 

The  elder  Bayles  winked  very  solemnly.  "We 
surely  ought,  sir,"  he  replied. 

"Then  it's  either  sell  or — " 

"Give  him  to  me.  Hurrah,  I  knew  you  would 
all  the  time."  And  she  sprang  down  from  the 
saddle  to  kiss  the  John  Norton  whom  men  called 
hard  and  cruel. 

As  Craig  took  his  leave  of  the  Nortons  at  the 
great  Long  Island  Union  station,  his  employer 
said  to  him  apart  from  the  others : — 

"Come  to  my  office  as  soon  as  I  come  in  the 
morning,  Philip.  There  may  be  things  to  talk 
over." 

With  the  young  man's  speculation  as  to  the 
exact  nature  of  his  new  work  was  mingled  surprise 
at  Norton's  attitude  toward  him,  evidenced  in 
many  ways  during  the  day  and  especially  by  the 
use  of  the  name  "Philip." 

"Why  should  he,  so  imperious  and  distant,  so 
self-contained  in  victory  or  defeat,  unbend  to 
me?"  asked  the  new  private  secretary  of  that 
other  consciousness  to  which  we  all  find  ourselves 
putting  questions  at  one  time  or  another.  The 

33 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

problem  was  too  deep ;  he  would  let  the  morrow 
begin  its  solution,  if  that  were  possible. 

But  he  could  not  quell  his  own  spirit.  After  he 
reached  home  he  found  himself  in  such  a  restless 
mood  that  he  determined  to  go  and  see  his  father, 
from  whose  house  he  had  removed  more  than  a 
year  previously  at  the  old  man's  broad  hint  that 
now  that  his  son  had  become  such  a  great  figure 
in  the  world,  and  was  so  "muneeficently"  paid 
by  his  employer,  whom  the  Scotchman  always 
mentioned  as  "the  plutocrat,"  he  would  do  well 
to  find  another  residence  more  in  keeping  with  his 
position  in  society. 


34 


CHAPTER  IV. 

FOUR  AGAINST  ONE. 

THE  chance  passer-by  through  an  especially 
dusty  and  unkempt  street  in  the  Department 
of  Brooklyn  often  paused  to  look  with  un 
measured  surprise  at  a  small  and  quaint  cottage, 
vine-embowered  and  with  picturesque  diamond- 
paned  windows,  set  in  the  very  arms  of  huge, 
grimy,  forbidding  factories.  Between  the  street 
and  its  pleasant  porch  grew  a  profusion  of  rare  and 
curious  flowers;  the  hollyhock  of  ancient  days, 
and  now  almost  forgotten ;  the  cockscomb,  of 
which  the  owner  of  the  tiny  house  had  some  of  the 
few  known  specimens ;  the  larkspur,  only  a  tradi 
tion  of  the  poets.  In  the  rear  one  could  see  the 
thriving  green  of  a  kitchen-garden,  where,  the 
neighborhood  report  was,  grew  many  strange 
vegetables  long  since  discarded  by  human  tastes. 
Indeed  the  grimy  factories  that  so  tightly  held 
this  bit  of  sylvan  greenery  in  their  grasp  were 
themselves  an  anomaly,  relics  of  an  age  when  dirt 
and  shabbiness  were  permitted  to  exist.  The 
modern  employment  of  electrothermal  power  for 
all  manufactures  had  long  since  abolished  smoke 
and  soot ;  the  renaissance  of  municipal  art  had  de 
creed  the  doom  of  ugly  structures,  no  matter  for 
what  purposes  erected.  So  this  section  of  the 
Department  of  Brooklyn  was  made  doubly  para 
doxical:  by  the  presence  of  the  dingy,  unesthetic 

35 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

barracks  of  toil  and  by  the  old-world  cottage  they 
embraced.  Here,  for  some  strange  reason,  had  the 
march  of  progress  been  brought  to  an  abrupt  halt. 
Here  lived  Angus  Craig,  the  Scotch  steel  engraver. 

Early  in  the  evening  of  American  Handicap 
day  two  men  could  be  seen  through  an  open 
window  of  the  cottage  engaged  in  that  medita 
tive  recreation,  a  game  of  chess.  Both  were  in 
shirt-sleeve  neglige,  which  constituted  about  the 
only  point  of  resemblance  between  them.  One 
was  a  man  of  about  fifty,  although  he  looked  older 
by  reason  of  two  large  furrows  between  his  deep- 
set  eyes.  His  strongly  Scottish  face  was  sur 
mounted  by  a  tousled  mass  of  reddish-gray  hair, 
and  far  down  under  his  chin  was  a  little  semicircle 
of  whiskers.  This  was  Angus  Craig 

The  other  was  a  short,  thick-set  Englishman, 
with  a  round,  ruddy  face  of  the  bulldog  type,  save 
that  his  nose  faintly  suggested  that  of  a  pig.  He 
was  as  full  of  opinions  as  a  nut  of  meat,  and  fond 
of  expressing  them  in  a  loud  and  sententious  voice 
that  carried  conviction  to  the  majority  of  his 
fellows.  This  was  Geoffrey  Fairbrother,  like 
Angus  Craig  a  skilled  steel  engraver  and  a  crony 
of  years'  standing.  As  such  he  took  liberties. 

"Checkmate,"  he  snorted,  "I've  done  it  again. 
Whatever's  the  matter  o'  you,  Angus?  That 
makes  two  to  one." 

"My  mind's  not  in  my  warrk  the  nicht,  Geoffrey. 
I  can't  get  that  silk-hatted  body  out  o'  my  head. 
The  fair  presoomption  o'  him,  to  think  I'd  sell 
my  bit  property  for  his  factory!" 

"Well,  all  the  rest  'ave  sold,  'aven't  they,  or  else 
bonded  their  land  and  buildings?" 

36 


FOUR  AGAINST  ONE 

The  Scotchman  ran  his  fingers  through  the 
fringe  beneath  his  chin. 

"Aye,  ye  may  say  that,  but  not  one  of  'em  has 
a  hame  here.  This  has  been  my  bidin'  for  near 
thirty  year.  But  dinna  let's  speak  of  it." 

"Shall  we  'ave  another  game?"  asked  the  good- 
hearted  Englishman,  anxious  to  divert  his  friend's 
thoughts. 

"No,  it's  ower  near  time  for  the  meetin'." 

Craig  carefully  put  away  his  chessmen,  beauti 
fully  carved  by  himself  in  ivory  given  him  by  an 
old  sea  captain. 

Fairbrother  lit  his  pipe  and  stared  out  into  the 
gathering  dusk.  The  great  light-discs  of  the 
city  had  not  yet  been  flooded,  and  the  occasional 
gleam  from  some  factory  forge,  telling  of  night 
work,  pierced  the  shadows. 

Craig  came  to  the  window  and  peered  up  the 
dismal  street,  coughing  vigorously  as  he  caught  an 
indrawn  breath  of  Fairbrother's  cloud  of  smoke. 

"Ach,  ach — they're  coming  the  noo.  They'll  be 
— ach,  ach — Ford  and  Langmaid,  I'm  thinking." 

As  the  two  visitors  came  up  the  graveled  walk, 
it  might  be  noted  that  one  was  tall  and  the  other 
short.  Later  under  the  lamp-light — Angus  still 
held  to  the  practically  obsolete  kerosene — their 
characteristics  were  better  revealed. 

A  grizzled,  dried-up  morsel  of  humanity  was 
Joseph  Langmaid,  looking  every  one  of  his  fifty 
years.  He  was  a  shoe  machine  operator,  and  his 
sharp  little  eyes  had  a  habit  of  darting  from  one 
object  to  another,  a  trick  acquired  from  the  watch 
ing  of  many  mechanisms.  He  was  a  wonderful 
fellow  at  talking,  with  a  sonorous  voice,  strangely 
out  of  consonance  with  his  small  body,  and  a 

37 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

steady  stream  of  words  which  he  delighted  to 
bring  to  a  sudden  stop — then,  shifting  his  glance 
to  various  of  his  hearers,  to  roll  out  the  end  and 
clincher  of  his  argument  with  great  deliberation 
and  impressiveness.  His  gestures  were  methodi 
cal  and  continuous,  as  if  influenced  by  the  tending 
of  machines. 

Quite  opposite  in  physical  attributes  was  his 
companion,  Luke  Ford.  A  much  younger  individ 
ual  and  a  lank  Yankee  of  the  ancient  type,  he  was  a 
man  of  silence.  He  was  a  prodigious  and  constant 
devourer  of  tobacco,  and  he  chewed  with  the  large, 
swaying,  ruminative  manner  of  a  cow  with  her 
cud.  Nothing  escaped  his  keen  observation. 
Now  and  then  he  would  open  his  mouth  as  if  about 
to  speak,  and  then,  as  if  reconsidering,  would  lapse 
into  his  reflective  movement  of  the  jaws.  But  that 
Luke  Ford  could  be  a  man  of  action  was  evidenced 
by  the  occasional  flash  of  his  eyes.  Rarely  he  ex 
pressed  his  distaste  for  the  endless  arguments  of 
his  friends,  but  generally  he  was  silently  content  to 
bide  his  time,  strong  in  the  conviction  of  his  mis 
sion  in  the  world  and  that  he  would  one  day  ful 
fil  it. 

These  four  men,  unlike  as  they  were  in  personal 
attributes,  were  held  together  by  a  common  love 
for  sociological  studies  and  theories.  They  were 
all  educated  to  a  fair  degree  in  the  sciences,  and 
they  read  much,  both  in  private  and  aloud  in  their 
"meetin'  "  from  works  on  industrial,  financial  and 
moral  problems.  They  had  all  written  treatises  of 
more  or  less  merit  for  the  journals  devoted  to  eco 
nomics,  and  Ford  was  commonly  reputed  to  be 
writing  a  book  on  the  immorality  of  class  distinc 
tion.  Twice  a  week  they  met  at  Angus  Craig's 

38 


FOUR  AGAINST  ONE 

cottage  for  the  reading  and  discussing  of  their 
favorite  works.  New  books,  too,  they  reviewed  in 
their  sessions,  and  woe  to  the  luckless  author  who 
should  be  stamped  as  heretical  by  the  combined 
force  of  their  four  intellects. 

This  night  it  was  Langmaid's  turn  to  read,  and 
that  worthy  cleared  his  throat  and  moistened  his 
lips  with  pleasurable  anticipation.  Angus  Craig 
sat  himself  down  in  a  large  wooden  rocking-chair, 
and,  with  closed  eyes,  gently  put  himself  in  motion. 
Ford  bit  an  enormous  quid  from  his  piece  of  black 
tobacco,  and  Fairbrother  fanned  his  red  face, 
which  was  growing  warm  under  the  lamp-light. 
Langmaid  felt  that  the  psychological  moment  had 
arrived. 

"I  will  now  read,  friends,"  he  began,  "some 
random  selections  from  a  book  called  'The  Power 
of  Manhood,'  by  Prof.  Sabin,  of  the  Socialist  Uni 
versity  of  the  Australian  Republic.  Brief  com 
ment  will  be  in  order,  as  usual ;  'brief  comment/  I 
said;"  and  he  threw  his  rapidly  shifting  glance 
from  one  to  the  other  of  his  hearers. 

"  'A  government  exists  in  theory  by  the  consent 
of  the  governed;  but  if  the  consent  is  obtained, 
which  is  dubious,  it  is  extorted  beneath  the  pres 
sure  of  moneybags.' ' 

"Hech,  mon,  but  that's  a  canny  phrase,"  inter 
jected  Craig.  "It's  true,  and  fause  both,  which  I 
wull  expound  later." 

"  'The  world  may  not  be  ripe  as  yet  for  an  up 
rising  which  shall  force  the  principle  of  equal 
rights  and  equal  burdens.' ' 

"Ripe?    It's  rotten,"  growled  Fairbrother. 

"  'The  aristocracy  of  wealth  is  far  more  inimical 
to  the  people  than  that  of  blood  and  the  favor  of 

39 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

kings,  for  the  man  whose  power  rests  on  money 
has  respect  for  only  two  things:  his  own  wealth 
and  the  man  with  more.' 

"And  I  say  to  that,"  continued  the  reader,  "that 
precious  little  respect  most  of  them  have  for  them 
selves,  with  their  silly  parties  and  their  empty 
twaddle  to  kill  time.  I  tell  you,  friends,  the  day  is 
coming — '  and  he  paused  for  effect,  and  then 
added  in  his  deliberate  fashion,  "when  these  things 
shall  be  no  more  on  earth !" 

"Amen,"  said  Craig,  whose  closed  eyes  added 
impressiveness  to  his  prayer. 

"  'The  people  of  every  time  have  had  a  weapon 
ready  to  their  hand.  Here  and  now  it  is  the 
ballot;  what  the  world  needs  is  more  direct  prac 
tical  politics.' ' 

Luke  Ford's  thin  face  flushed,  and  he  moved  as 
if  to  rise  to  his  feet,  but  did  not. 

"What  it  needs,"  he  almost  shouted  in  his 
raucous,  penetrating  tones,  "is  more  action  and 
less  talk.  I  could —  But  what  was  in  his  heart 
to  do  his  friends  did  not  then  learn,  for  he  sud 
denly  lapsed  into  himself,  tore  off  another  piece  of 
tobacco  with  his  sharp  teeth,  and  sank  into  his 
customary  silence. 

The  reading  had  proceeded  not  very  much 
farther  when  Philip  Craig  reached  the  cottage. 
He  smiled  as  he  came  within  sound  of  the  droning 
voice  of  Langmaid,  and  quietly  made  his  way  in 
side  without  knocking.  His  entrance  to  the  little 
sitting  room  made  no  more  stir  than  had  the  ap 
pearance  of  his  father's  old  gray  cat  a  little  while 
before.  Angus  merely  nodded  in  silence,  and  the 
reading  went  on  without  a  break. 

"Capital,  h'mph,"  snorted  Langmaid,  as  he  fin- 
40 


FOUR  AGAINST  ONE 

ished  reading  a  paragraph  in  which  the  obnoxious 
word  had  been  prominent,  "what  has  capital  ever 
done  for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  labor? 
Capital  fattens  when  labor  starves.  No  wonder  it 
forces  us  to  short  rations,"  and  he  transfixed  Philip 
with  a  glare  from  his  steely  little  eyes,  as  if  defying 
him  to  combat. 

"My  dear  Mr.  Langmaid,"  said  the  young  man 
pacifically,  "aren't  you  a  bit  hard  on  capital?  It  is 
spent  foolishly,  senselessly  if  you  will,  but  not  a 
dollar  comes  from  the  strong  box  of  the  rich  that 
does  not  eventually  find  its  level  in  the  wages  of 
the  poor." 

"Nonsense.  Theory  exploded  long  ago.  Me 
diaeval  political  economy,"  returned  the  reader 
stubbornly. 

"It  has  always  seemed  to  me,"  continued  Philip, 
"that  capital  is  to  labor  as  the  water  to  the  mill- 
wheel  ;  without  the  one  the  other  sends  no  corn  to 
the  grist." 

"You're  a  great  one  to  talk,"  retorted  Fair- 
brother,  ceasing  his  fanning  for  the  sake  of  argu 
ment,  "you  who  deserted  your  father  for  a  pluto 
crat's  protection.  You're  a  renegade." 

If  the  younger  Craig's  temper  rose  a  little  at  this 
name-slinging,  he  gave  no  sign  of  it. 

"I've  often  noticed,  Mr.  Fairbrother,"  he  re 
turned  quietly,  "that  the  man  without  an  argu 
ment  ready  always  has  an  epithet  at  hand." 

"There,  there,  let's  have  no  squabbling,"  broke 
in  Angus,  "Philip  has  his  own  opeenions,  and, 
good  or  bad,  he's  a  richt  to  'em.  Thought  is  one 
thing  that's  free.  We're  four  against  ane,  and 
that's  not  fair  anyway." 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Despite  the  good-natured  protestations  of 
Philip,  it  seemed  to  be  the  consensus  of  opinion 
that  the  "meetin'  "  had  been  effectually  broken  up 
by  his  coming.  After  a  decent  lapse  of  time  the 
three  visitors  took  their  departure,  and  father  and 
son  were  left  alone. 


42 


CHAPTER   V. 

EMBERS  OF  THE  PAST. 

HE  Craigs,  father  and  son,  were  alike  and  yet 
very  dissimilar.  In  his  sinewy,  clean-cut 
frame  the  younger  man  resembled  the  elder, 
and  in  voice  there  was  the  same  rather  high- 
pitched  and  incisive,  yet  musical  tone.  The  long, 
slender  fingers  of  the  father,  kept  soft  and  shapely 
by  the  delicate  work  of  his  profession,  were  repro 
duced  exactly  in  the  son. 

But  in  the  faces  of  the  two  men  one  could  have 
read  no  relationship.  Philip  had  nothing  of  his 
father's  Scottish  cast,  nothing  of  the  reddish  tinge 
of  hair  and  skin,  nothing  of  the  prominent  brows. 
Some  beautiful  dark  American  woman  had  evi 
dently  bequeathed  to  him  her  features  and  eyes,  to 
be  transmuted  by  masculinity  into  a  strong  and 
attractive  countenance. 

"Weel,  lad,  how  fares  it  wi'  ye?"  asked  Angus 
at  length. 

"Very  well,  indeed,  father.  In  fact,  I've  to-day 
been  made  confidential  secretary  to  Mr.  Norton. 
The  salary  is  large  and  the  advancement  great.  It 
was  a  complete  surprise  to  me." 

"So.  I  trust  ye'll  do  ye'er  duty,  for  we  a'  maun 
strive  for  that.  But  ye'er  in  the  power  o'  the 
reech,  boy,  and  ye'd  best  keep  a  watchfu'  e'e  lest 
ye  coom  to  harm.  Oh,  the  strength  of  wealth ;  I've 

43 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

felt  it  this  verra   day.      It   e'en   grudges   us   our 
hames." 

"What  do  you  mean,  father?" 

"I'll  tell  ye.  This  noon  a  smooth  appearin'  body 
wi*  a  tall  shiny  hat  cooms  up  on  the  porch  and 
knocks  verra  politely.  I  leaves  my  bite  and  sup, 
and  goes  to  let  him  in. 

"  'Is  this  Maister  Angus  Craig  that  I've  heard 
sae  much  aboot?'  says  he.  'My  name's  Holloway.' 

"  'I'm  Angus  Craig,  at  ye'er  sairvice,'  says  I, 
'though  I  dinna  ken  why  ye  should  have  heard 
o'  me.' 

"  'They  say  ye'er  a  fair  clever  warrkman  and  a 
mon  o'  abeelity  in  ither  lines,'  he  replies.  'But  I've 
coom  tae  see  ye  mainly  on  a  matter  o'  business. 
How  wad  ye  like  tae  sell  ye'er  property,  here  ?' 

"  'My  hame?'  says  I,  all  ta'en  aback,  'not  for  a' 
the  gowd  ye  could  pit  inside  it.' 

"  'Weel,  I'm  authorized  tae  offer  ye  five  thou 
sand  dollars  for  the  place,'  he  goes  on,  verra  easy 
like.  'A  seendicate  is  goin'  tae  pit  up  a  great  fac 
tory  on  this  site,  and  your  land  is  needed.' 

"  'Gae  back  tae  ye'er  seendicate,'  says  I,  'and 
teil  'em  that  they  havna  money  enow  in  all  their 
strong-boxes  tae  buy  out  Angus  Craig.' 

"  'Better  conseeder  a  bit,  Maister  Craig,'  says  the 
mon.  'Even  if  ye  dinna  sell,  there'll  be  a  great, 
noisy  factory  all  around  ye  for  the  making  o'  pneu 
matic  engines.  Ye'll  be  driven  crazy  by  the  racket. 
Maybe  ye  conseeder  five  thousand  too  little;  if  so, 
1  think  I  may  induce  the  seendicate  tae  pay  ye 
seven.  But  not  a  dollar  mair.  Ye'd  better  be 
reasonable,  Maister  Craig.' 

"  'Maister  Holloway/  says  I,  'once  and  for  a' 
the  place  is  not  for  sale.  Good  day  tae  ye.'  ' 

44 


EMBERS  OF  THE  PAST 

A  feeling  of  pity  for  his  father  arose  in  Philip's 
heart.  Hitherto  the  elder  man  had  seemed  to  him 
the  incarnation  of  strength,  a  sort  of  rock  incapa 
ble  of  erosion  by  the  waves  of  circumstance.  Now 
he  was  human  like  the  rest,  threatened  by  a  force 
that  would  use  every  endeavor  to  crush  him.  And 
for  the  first  time,  too,  he  thought  of  his  father  as 
growing  old. 

"Ye'll  be  wonderin'  what  makes  me  sae  sair 
against  partin'  wi'  the  place,  perhaps,  lad.  Coom 
wi'  me  for  a  bit." 

Together  they  walked  into  the  garden  behind 
the  cottage.  Under  the  faint  luminosity  from  the 
light  discs  in  the  street  they  could  easily  see  their 
way  about.  The  old  man  led  to  a  vine-covered 
mound  in  one  corner. 

''There's  auld  Neb's  grave,  lad.  Ye  ken  the 
dog.  For  fourteen  year  he  was  leal  and  true.  He 
saved  ye'er  life  once  when  a  runaway  horse  was 
comin'  doun  the  street.  Shall  that  be  leveled  for 
a  mill? 

"Here's  the  rose-bush  planted  by  your  mither 
before  ye  were  born.  She  nursed  it  into  life  and 
fought  off  the  wee  bit  pests  that  wanted  its  sap. 
Do  ye  think  I'm  the  mon  tae  let  a  gang  o'  warrk- 
men  tear  up  its  roots  and  cast  it  tae  the  rubbish- 
heap  ?  Not  while  God  leaves  a  spark  o'  life  in  this 
puir  body.  Coom  now  into  the  house." 

Philip  followed  as  in  a  dream.  This  passion- 
racked,  grief-shaken  man  his  stern,  unemotional 
father !  A  sudden  glimpse  of  the  true  nature  of  his 
sire  came  to  him  in  that  moment,  as,  when  a  great 
gale  sometimes  blows  the  mist  from  a  mountain, 
one  sees  all  at  once  the  hitherto  hidden  top.  He 

45 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

wondered  to  what  extent  he  himself  had  been  en 
dowed  with  like  attributes. 

Angus  seized  a  lamp  with  trembling  hands  and 
went  unsteadily  up  the  narrow  stairway  to  the  sec 
ond  floor.  Fumbling  at  the  lock  of  a  door  Philip 
did  not  remember  ever  having  seen  opened,  he  at 
length  threw  it  back  and  entered  the  room,  hold 
ing  the  light  high  above  his  head.  A  faintly  sweet, 
warm  odor,  subtly  suggestive  of  death,  was  wafted 
out  to  the  young  man's  senses.  He  paused  at  the 
threshold,  held  by  an  indefinable  dread. 

"Coom  in,  lad,  coom,"  said  his  father  gently, 
"there  are  nae  ghaists  here  except  the  wraiths  o' 
memory.  This  was  ye'er  mither's  room.  In  that 
chair  she  used  to  sit  and  sing  to  ye  when  ye  were 
a  wee  bairn.  There's  the  cradle  close  by  in  which 
ye  used  to  lie  and  listen  to  her  sweet  voice.  On 
that  couch  she  de'ed;  I  moved  her  there  because 
she  said  she  wouldna  bring  unhappiness  to  the  bed 
where  I  must  sleep  after  she  had  gone.  But  I 
never  used  this  room  again.  All's  just  as  she  left 
it,  only  kept  neat  and  clean  as  she  would  like. 
There's  not  a  day  passed  since  she  went  but  I've 
coom  here  and  prayed,  and  often  I've  seen  her 
sweet  face  hoverin'  ower  me.  But  it  wouldna  stay, 
lad,  it  wouldna  stay.  Oh,  Philip,  ye'er  faither's 
had  a  sair  cross  tae  bear !" 

Angus  Craig  set  the  lamp  down  gently  on  a 
quaint  mahogany  table.  There  at  its  centre  was 
a  little  old-fashioned  work-basket,  still  gay  with 
its  red  cushions  and  bright  with  polished  steel.  At 
the  sight  of  it  the  old  man's  grief  was  stirred  anew. 
He  buried  his  head  within  his  outstretched  arms, 
and  sobs  shook  his  spare  frame. 

Philip's  eyes  moistened  with  sympathy  and  a 
46 


EMBERS  OF  THE  PAST 

pang  of  self-reproach  moved  him  to  unaccus 
tomed  tenderness.  He  laid  his  hand  gently  on  his 
father's  grizzled  head. 

"Don't  grieve  so,  father,"  he  said,  as  softly  as 
to  a  sick  child,  "perhaps  the  matter  can  be  adjusted 
somehow.  I  never  realized  how  much  you  loved 
this  place.  You  never  used  to  take  me  into  your 
confidence,  you  know." 

Angus  raised  his  head,  and  wiped  his  eyes  with 
his  great  red  handkerchief. 

"Ye  think  I'm  a  harrd  mon,  Philip,"  he  ex 
claimed,  "and  perhaps  I  am.  But  do  ye  ken  what 
made  me  so?  How  auld  do  ye  think  me?  Aboot 
sixty-five  or  so,  I  doubt.  Weel,  I'm  not ;  I'm  but 
fifty-two.  Do  ye  ken  what  made  me  an  auld  mon 
before  my  time?" 

"How  should  I?" 

"Weel,  I'll  tell  ye  the  noo,  though  'tis  late.  It 
may  be  better  so,  for  ye're  a  mon  settled,  and  per 
haps  can  better  understand. 

"Twenty-five  year  ago,  or  mair,  I  was  an  en 
graver  in  a  great  watch  factory  in  this  city.  The 
wage  was  gude,  and  I  was  a  happy  mon.  Ye'er 
mither  and  I  lived  here  in  peace  and  comfort,  and 
when  ye  came  yersel'  I  was  that  glad  I  sang  for 
joy.  Ye  never  heard  me  sing,  lad — no,  nor  never 
wull,  I'm  thinking. 

"Weel,  there  came  a  time  by  and  by  when  the 
men  in  the  factory  went  on  strike.  There  was  nae 
fault  wi'  their  employer,  for  he  was  a  kind  mon, 
and  treated  us  fair.  There  was  nae  question  of 
wage,  either.  The  trouble  was  all  ower  a  sort  of 
foreman  who  had  been  stiff-backed  against  the 
manager,  and  had  inseested  on  doing  some  things 
in  his  ain  way.  He  was  finally  deescharged,  and 

47 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

then  the  men  gave  notice  that  if  he  weren't  taken 
back,  they  would  gae  on  strike ;  he  was  high  in  the 
union,  and  a  great  mon  for  the  gab.  He  weren't 
reinstated,  and  the  ithers,  three  thousand  of  'em, 
struck — all  but  Angus  Craig.  He  believed  the 
employer  richt,  and  he  stuck  to  him,  the  one  mon 
oot  of  a'  those  thousands  who  went  to  warrk  the 
next  dav  and  the  next." 

Philip  looked  at  his  father  with  admiration. 
This  was  the  Angus  Craig  he  knew,  the  staunch 
soul  who  would  dare  anything  for  opinion's  sake. 

"You  were  a  brave  man,"  he  said. 

"Weel,  perhaps,  though  it's  no'  much  bravery 
to  stand  by  the  richt  or  what  ye  think  is  the  richt. 
I  paid  a  dear  price  for  it,  though.  I  was  scorned 
and  hooted  and  mobbed.  I  was  ca'ed  'Judas/  and 
my  life  was  threatened.  Warse  yet,  a  crowd  of 
hoodlums,  who  took  the  excuse  of  the  strike  to 
vent  their  own  rage  for  disorder,  came  to  this 
house  one  nicht  and  cursed  me  and  threw  stanes 
at  the  windows.  Ye'er  puir  mither,  delicate  as  she 
was,  was  turribly  frightened,  and  I  believe  her  de 
cline  began  from  that  nicht.  But  she  was  leal,  and 
never  made  ane  warrd  o'  complaint.  She  believed 
me  richt,  and  that  was  enow  for  her." 

"She  was  braver  even  than  you." 

"Ye  may  weel  say  that,  mon,  for  she  was.  a 
woman.  .  .  .  Weel,  the  factory  manager,  Glasby, 
got  thegither  some  outside  help,  and  ran  on  for  a 
while.  But  I  could  see  that  things  went  hard. 
Ane  day  I  was  called  to  Maister  Glasby's  office.  I 
went  in  expecting  a  bit  more  wage  or  a  higher 
poseetion  for  stickin'  to  the  company." 

"Maister  Glasby  was  verra  affable,  and  asked 
after  ye'er  mither  and  you  like  an  auld  friend. 

48 


EMBERS  OF  THE  PAST 

Then  he  began  to  talk  about  the  strike.  He  told 
me  how  hard  it  was  to  get  skeelled  men  outside  the 
unions,  how  business  had  fa' en  off,  and  how  the 
shareholders,  resenting  the  seetuation,  had  held  a 
meeting  and  at  the  advice  o  the  president  o'  the 
company  voted  to  end  the  strike  by  taking  back 
the  discharged  foreman  and  a'  the  ithers. 

"  'A'  richt/  says  I,  Tm  glad  the  trouble's  to  be 
settled.'  Then  I  saw  there  was  something  else  on 
his  mind.  He  hemmed  and  hawed,  and  didna 
seem  to  ken  how  to  begin. 

"  'Anything  else,  sir?'  I  asked. 

"  'Yes,  Craig,  there  is  one  ither  matter,'  he  says, 
'that  I  dinna  like  to  speak  about.  Ye've  been  a 
gude  mon,  and  stuck  tae  us  through  thick  and 
thin.  But  the  men  are  doun  on  ye,  and  make  it  a 
condeetion  o'  returning  to  warrk  that  ye  leave  the 
factory.' 

"  'That  I  be  deescharged,  ye  mean,  I  suppose,' 
says  I. 

"  'Weel,  that's  aboot  it,  Craig,'  says  he.  'It's  a 
thing  we  a'  hate  tae  do,  but  beesiness  is  beesiness, 
and  it's  the  fortunes  o'  warr.  We've  lost  the  fight, 
Craig,  you  and  me.' 

"I  said  nae  mair,  but  put  on  my  hat  and  started 
tae  gae. 

'  'Wait  a  minute,  Craig,'  says  Glasby,  'there's 
something  that'll  please  ye.  I  am  authorized  to 
pay  ye  a  whole  year's  wage  as  a  testimonial  of  our 
regard  for  ye.' 

"'Please  me?"  says  I,  full  o'  wrath  and  scorn 
that  I  couldna  keep  doun,  'please  me  tae  take  siller 
for  bein'  disgraced  and  discarded?  I'd  rot  in  the 
pool-house  fairst.  Tell  that  tae  ye'er  stockholders, 
Maister  Glasby,  and  wish  'em  long  life  and  pros- 

49 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

perity  from  a  Scotchman  who  made  a  fule  o'  him- 
sel'  in  their  sairvice.'  ' 

As  the  father  finished  this  part  of  his  recital  his 
voice  grew  strong  and  a  faint  smile  as  of  triumph 
in  the  remembrance  of  his  sturdy  manhood  illu 
mined  the  thin  face.  To  add  to  the  impressiveness 
of  the  picture  the  lamp-flame  sank  lower  and 
lower,  and  feebly  flickered  away.  Then  the  room 
was  filled  with  the  soft,  pale  glow  of  the  city's 
light-discs,  diffused  equally  in  every  nook  and  cor 
ner.  With  its  antique  furnishings  and  its  quaint 
and  simple  utensils  of  an  age  long  dead,  it  seemed 
a  habitation  of  ghosts.  If  soft  whispers  and  the 
rustling  of  a  woman's  dress  had  come  to  Philip's 
ears,  he  knew  he  would  have  felt  no  surprise. 
There  reigned  a  stillness  which  he  would  not  be 
the  first  to  break. 

"The  warst  was  yet  tae  come ;  I  had  tae  tell  the 
news  tae  ye'er  mither.  For  days  I  didna  dare,  and 
used  to  go  out  as  usual,  pretendin'  I  was  at  warrk, 
when  I  could  get  nane.  But  she  had  to  ken  at  last. 
She  was  brave  as  ever,  but  I  could  see  that  it  was 
a  great  shock.  Yet  wreak  as  she  was,  she  bright 
ened  whenever  she  looked  at  you.  The  expenses 
went  on — for  nursin'  and  medicine  and  a  bit  dainty 
food  noo  and  then.  But  she — God  love  her — 
faded  mair  and  mair,  till  ane  nicht  she  whuspered 
goodby  to  you  and  me  and  won  awa." 

The  full  tide  of  remembered  sorrow  swept  in 
upon  Angus'  soul,  and  the  tears  flowed  without 
restraint.  Then  he  seemed  to  remember  the  pres 
ence  of  the  other  man,  his  son,  but  still  a  stranger 
to  his  emotions,  and  he  stilled  the  storm. 

"Now  do  you  wonder,  Philip,  that  I  hate  the 
power  o' the  reech?  Oh,  the  greed  for  gowd !  It 

50 


EMBERS  OF  THE  PAST 

makes  the  strong  trample  the  weak  and  the  weak 
curse  the  weaker.  It  makes  enemies  o'  brithers, 
and  puts  the  de'il  into  the  hearts  o'  babes,  a'most. 
It  sends  the  love  o'  God  cowerin'  back  tae  heaven, 
and  fills  the  airth  wi'  rapine  and  tumult.  It  shakes 
the  dice  for  the  verra  clothes  of  our  Saviour,  after 
it  has  betrayed  him  for  the  pieces  o'  siller.  Philip, 
lad,  keep  a  guard  on  ye'er  immortal  soul ;  ye're  in 
great  danger  the  noo;  ye're  in  the  temple  o'  the 
high  priest  o'  Mammon.  Beware,  mon,  beware." 


CHAPTER    VI. 

MOONLIGHT  AND   SHADOW. 

JOHN  PETER  NORTON  sat  in  the  library  of 
his  home  on  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which 
he  became  world-famed,  and  reviewed  the 
events  of  the  afternoon  in  his  peculiarly  analytic 
and  calculating  way.  By  virtue  of  superior 
bunches  of  muscles  in  a  horse's  legs  and  that  un 
known  something  called  courage  in  a  horse's 
brain,  he  had  been  sent  further  along  his  chosen 
pathway  than  by  months  or  years  of  the  most  care 
ful  and  energetic  labors  on  his  own  part.  Prestige 
had  come  to  him  with  the  rush  of  many  feet,  and 
he  knew  that  his  battle  against  exclusiveness  was 
nearly  over. 

The  beautiful  room  was  unlighted,  save  by  the 
moonbeams  that  slanted  in  through  the  broad 
bow-window  formed  of  one  immense  semi-circle  of 
glass.  Just  beyond,  the  stiff,  pointed  trees  and  the 
marble  seats  of  an  Italian  garden  were  clearly  vis 
ible  under  the  flood  of  radiance.  One  could  al 
most  see  the  towering  fence  of  gold-capped  steel 
bars  and  the  gates  of  massive  masonry  that  shut 
the  Norton  palace  from  the  street.  The  estate 
was  not  large,  for  it  was  in  reality  a  city  residence, 
one  of  the  hundreds  congregated  in  a  sightly  sub 
urb  of  the  Department  of  Brooklyn,  where  lived 
the  multi-millionaires  of  the  great  metropolis  in  a 
sort  of  concentric  colony;  "John  Peter"  was  very 

52 


MOONLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

near  the  centre  of  this  circle  of  superb  luxury  and 
elegance.  He  could  not  have  had  more  land  even 
had  he  desired  it,  for  money  had  long  since  ceased 
to  be  a  purchasing  power  in  this  region.  Indeed, 
he  had  obtained  the  few  acres  he  possessed  only 
by  the  exercise  of  his  utmost  resources  of  intimida 
tion.  Through  a  certain  stock  "corner"  he  held 
the  owner  of  the  land  in  a  strangling  grip,  and  the 
price  of  release  was  the  property.  The  price  was 
paid. 

From  the  towers  of  the  great  stone  house, 
which,  by  reason  of  its  turrets,  battlements  and 
embrasures,  had  become  known  as  the  "castle," 
could  be  seen  the  encircling  dwellings  of  the  peo 
ple  of  less  wealth,  and  beyond  them  a  stretch  of 
country  dividing  by  a  half-mile  or  so  the  pride  of 
the  aristocracy  of  wealth  from  the  meaner  houses 
of  the  poor  and  the  outer  limits  of  the  giant  city 
where  lay  the  real  wealth  of  the  rich — a  sleeping 
power  for  good  or  evil. 

But  tonight,  thinking  only  of  himself  and  his 
plans  for  further  greatness,  John  Norton  sat  in 
his  library  watching  the  moonlight  as  it  fell  upon 
a  polished  table,  where  his  hand  was  resting,  and 
woke  into  life  the  fire  of  the  diamond  on  his  finger. 
The  Hashing  points  of  color  seemed  somehow  typi 
cal  of  his  own  success,  and  he  moved  his  hand 
gently  to  increase  the  brilliant  scintillations  of  the 
gem/ 

He  smiled  as  he  recalled  the  eagerness  of  many 
to  meet  him  that  afternoon :  how  Van  Renssalaer 
Cruger  Low,  one  of  the  most  conservative  of  the 
middle-aged  men  of  millions  and  of  family,  had 
extended  him  and  his  wife  an  invitation  to  dine 
"en  famille;"  how  several  of  the  most  prominent 

53 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

members  of  the  turf  club  had  insisted  that  a  dinner 
be  given  in  his  honor,  and  how  he  had  been  still 
more  insistent  that  he,  as  the  fortunate  winner  of 
the  American,  should  be  host  and  not  guest.  He 
wished  to  pick  his  men  and  not  have  them  chosen 
for  him.  Already  he  was  planning  the  details  of 
the  banquet,  which  he  determined  should  surpass 
anything  since  the  days  of  Rome.  He  would  have 
the  foremost  men  of  the  hour  there;  of  several  of 
them  he  felt  morally  certain.  The  others  would 
follow,  he  was  sure. 

"After  all,"  he  reasoned,  half  aloud,  "men,  be 
they  barbarians  or  of  the  highest  type  of  culture, 
are  much  like  sheep;  they'll  follow  their  leader 
over  any  kind  of  a  stone  wall  if  only  the  tinkle  of 
the  bell-wether  is  sufficiently  alluring." 

A  gentle  tap  on  the  door  interrupted  his 
schemes  and  his  philosophy. 

"It's  I,  John,"  said  the  sweet,  low  voice  of  his 
wife.  "Are  you  busy?" 

"No,  indeed,  Harriet,"  returned  the  husband 
cordially,  "come  over  to  the  window.  Here  is 
your  favorite  chair  already  placed."  And  he 
kissed  her  as  she  took  her  seat. 

"But  why  are  you  in  the  dark,  John?"  she 
asked. 

"Don't  call  it  the  dark,  my  dear.  This  is  as 
beautiful  a  light  as  any  we  know ;  I  like  to  sit  in  it." 

"As  much  as  you  did  thirty  years  ago?"  she 
queried  gently. 

"Ah,  thirty  years  ago !  That  was  moonlight  for 
you,  Harriet.  It  was  the  friend  of  our  courting 
days,  the  good  genius  of  a  sleigh  ride,  the  discreet 
lamp  of  all  the  lovers'  lanes  we  walked  together. 

54 


MOONLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

And  to  think  that  this  is  the  same  moon.     No 
wonder  I'm  fond  of  it." 

She  looked  at  him  with  tenderness  and  gratitude 
shining  from  her  mild  eyes.  It  mattered  not  what 
he  was  to  the  world,  how  hard  and  cruel  he  was 
called,  he  was  the  John  Norton  who  won  her  when 
lovers  were  many  and  he  was  poor. 

"But  Harriet,"  he  continued,  more  soberly,  "it 
seems  to  me  that  you  are  not  wholly  well.  I 
thought  I  saw  a  drawn  look  in  your  face  at  the 
race  to-day.  And,  pardon  me,  but  I  really  believe 
there's  a  wrinkle  or  two." 

"I'm  sure  there  are  many  of  them,  John,  dear; 
it's  time,  you  know,"  she  replied  laughingly. 

"Time?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  You  are  just  as  young 
as  you  were — well,  the  night  I  punched  Solon 
White's  head  for  him  out  at  Elder  Chase's  well 
because  he  dared  ask  you  to  walk  home  with  him 
from  the  donation  party  at  the  parsonage.  You 
remember,  Solon,  of  course,  Harriet?" 

"Of  course  I  do.  And  I  remember,  too,  that 
you  were  wrong." 

"But  I  licked  him,"  said  Norton,  triumphantly. 

His  wife  laughed  merrily. 

"Then  it's  not  always  true  that  the  battle  is  to 
the  right.  You  were  surely  wrong,  because  I  had 
hinted  to  Solon — you  were  late,  you  know — that 
I  was  afraid  I  might  have  to  walk  home  alone." 

"He  was  an  impudent  rascal.  Like  a  lot  of  the 
others,  he  thought  that  because  you  were  a  school 
teacher  anybody  had  a  right  to  beau  you  about.  .  . . 
But  about  your  health — are  you  really  well?" 

"Yes,  I  am  well,  but- 

"But  what,  dear?" 

"Well,  I— I  am  anxious." 
55 


'ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT, 

"Anxious  ?    About  what  or  whom  ?" 

She  made  no  reply. 

"Come,  Harriet,"  he  persisted,  "tell  me  what 
you  mean  by  'anxious.' ' 

"John,  I  am  anxious  for  you." 

"Me?"  he  exclaimed  in  amused  amazement, 
"why,  how  is  that?" 

"This  struggle — this  battle  for  great  wealth; 
when  will  it  end  ?" 

"When  I  do,  Harriet." 

Her  tender  femininity  shrank  from  the  harsh 
expression,  as  a  delicate  plant  from  a  biting  wind. 
He  realized  the  cruelty  of  his  speech,  and  hastened 
to  amend  it. 

"I  mean,  Harriet,"  he  said,  "that  I  shall  always 
be  active  in  affairs;  I  could  scarcely  live  other 
wise." 

"But  why?"  she  persisted.  "We  surely  have 
more  money  than  we  or  our  child  can  ever  hope  to 
employ.  When  will  you  begin  to  enjoy  it,  John?" 

"Enjoy  it?  I  never  can,  never  do  enjoy  it.  One 
million,  two  millions,  fifty  millions,  are  all  alike — 
they  are  but  weapons.  The  soldier  cherishes  his 
swrord,  the  general  his  guns,  because  through  them 
they  can  make  their  power  felt.  They  do  not 
enjoy  them  otherwise.  Money:  what  is  it?  The 
ruin  of  the  strong,  the  temptation  of  the  weak. 
To  me  it  is  not  money,  but  the  emblem  of  power. 
You  know  as  no  other  of  my  early  struggles,  of  the 
obstacles  that  money  threw  in  the  way  of  an  honest 
fight  for  a  home — a  fight  for  you.  You  know  how 
I  -vowed  that  I  would  win — how  I  did  win.  And 
the  man  who  fights  with  money  must  fight  for 
more  money,  or  his  antagonists  will  laugh  at  him 
for  a  fool  or  spurn  him  as  a  coward.  I  owe  it  to 

56 


MOONLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

myself,  to  my  past,  to  my  friends  who  trust  me, 
who  have  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  me  in 
the  fight  that  I  go  on  till  I  have  done  all  that  is 
to  be  done.  Money?  Bah!  Often  I  sicken  of  it, 
its  false  glitter,  its  hollow  ring,  its  sneering  crisp- 
ness.  I'm  not  certain  sometimes  but  I  should  be 
happier  to-day  were  you  and  Helen  and  I  still  out 
on  the  arid  and  thankless  farm  where  I  first  met 
you." 

The  gentle  woman  gazed  at  her  husband  in  a 
sort  of  waking  dream.  It  was  all  so  strange,  so 
new.  Rarely  had  he  made  so  long  an  utterance  to 
her,  never  had  he  so  pulled  aside  the  curtain  of  his 
mind  to  let  her  see  the  real  drama  that  was  going 
forward  there.  From  that  moment  a  new  under 
standing  of  the  strong,  silent  man  came  to  her ;  in 
the  intensity  of  that  revelation  she  knew  not 
whether  to  feel  reassured  or  more  troubled  still. 

Something  of  this  uncertainty  John  Norton  saw 
in  his  wife's  face.  His  animation,  unknown  even 
to  his  best  friends,  died  away,  and  the  sparkle  in 
his  eyes  fled  into  the  night.  His  voice  lost  its 
hardness  as  he  said  kindly : — 

"There,  there;  don't  let  me  frighten  you.  It  is 
strange  that  in  nearly  thirty  years  of  married  life 
this  is  the  first  time  you  have  ever  said  a  word  that 
hinted  at  regret.  Why  is  it  ?  Why  do  you  worry 
about  me — now  ?" 

"I  have  never  before  felt  the  need.  Your  busi 
ness  was  your  life-work.  I  rejoiced  in  your  suc 
cess  because  it  was  your  happiness.  I  watched  the 
growth  of  your  plans  because  they  ivcre  yours, 
John,  not  because  I  coveted  the  money  they 
poured  into  my  lap.  But  never  till  to-day  did  I 

57 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

realize  that  the  incessant  strife  of  a  quarter  of  a 
century  has  worn  upon  you." 

He  laughed  in  his  quiet,  rather  inexpressive 
fashion. 

"Worn  upon  me?  What  on  earth  put  that  idea 
into  your  level  little  head?" 

"Because  to-day  for  the  first  time  I  saw  your 
nerves  unstrung." 

"At  the  race?"  he  queried,  with  a  smile. 

"No,  not  at  the  race,"  she  returned,  gently. 
"After.  When  you  came  to  us  at  the  stables. 
Something  had  happened  at  the  clubhouse;  I 
could  see  it." 

He  threw  his  keen  glance  at  her  still  delicately 
pretty  profile  outlined  against  the  moonlight. 
Better  than  all  the  rest  she  could  read  him,  he 
thought,  and  he  marveled. 

"I  was  a  trifle  bothered,"  he  admitted,  "and — 
well,  the  race  was  a  bit  fatiguing.  ...  By  the 
way,  I  met  Sandstrom." 

"The  Count?  It  is  foolish,  I  know,  but  I  can 
not  conquer  a  dread  of  that  man." 

"Dread?"  he  laughed,  "wait  till  you  see  him. 
He  is  about  as  opposite  to  an  inspirer  of  dread  as 
can  be.  A  well-bred  man  who  looks  as  if  a  long 
line  of  ancestors  had  preferred  weak  claret  and 
water  to  the  national  hop  beverage.  He's  as 
harmless  as  Helen's  angora  kitten.  But  as  for  me, 
Harriet,  I've  been  in  harness  for  thirty  odd  years, 
and  there  I'll  stay  as  long  as  there  is  a  load  to 
draw."  And  he  patted  his  wife's  head  affection 
ately. 

"Well,  dear,"  she  said,  "as  long  as  money  stays 
in  your  head  and  does  not  trouble  your  heart,  I 
shall  not  care." 

58 


MOONLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

"Don't  you  abuse  money  because  I  have,"  re 
turned  Norton,  with  mock  indignation,  "it's  a 
good  servant  after  all." 

"But  a  bad  master,"  she  insinuated. 

"It  hasn't  mastered  me  yet.  The  almighty 
dollar,  I  have  found,  is  chiefly  denounced  by  those 
who  need  it  most." 

"But  it  isn't  essential  to  happiness,  is  it,  John?" 
she  asked,  wistfully. 

"Well,  money  may  not  sow  the  seed  of  happi 
ness,  but  it  is  often  a  great  fertilizer  for  it." 

"Yet  after  all,  it  is  only  a  mighty  slave  driver." 

"Well,  my  dear,  it  sha'n't  drive  me  forever. 
Some  day  I  will  retire  from  active  life,  and  we  will 
spend  our  declining  years  gazing  into  the  fireplace 
or  at  the  moon.  Seriously,  Harriet,  I  have  a  duty 
to  perform — to  myself  and  to  others.  I  could  no 
more  drop  my  obligations  now,  with  honor  to  my 
self,  than  I  could  desert  you  and  Helen.  Women 
do  not  always  understand  such  things,  but  a  very 
rich  man  has  moral  obligations  far  greater  than 
any  of  a  financial  nature  can  possibly  be.  Should 
I  lay  down  my  burden  now,  thousands  would 
surfer.  I  must  go  on — to  the  end.  .  .  .  But  the 
moonlight  and  its  shadows  have  aroused  dismal 
fancies.  Let  us  banish  them." 

He  touched  a  tiny  button,  one  of  many  buried 
in  the  stamped  leather  walls.  There  was  a  slight 
tremor  of  the  air  and  at  once  a  flood  of  amber  radi 
ance  filled  the  room  in  its  every  part. 

"There,"  he  exclaimed,  "my  moonlight  paradise 
is  gone.  I  fancy  the  Garden  of  Eden's  only  illu 
mination  was  moonlight — if  there  ever  was  a 
Garden  of  Eden." 


59 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Well,"  retorted  his  wife,  "if  the  Garden  of  Eden 
story  isn't  true,  it's  rather  hard  on  the  serpent." 

"Very,"  he  assented.  "Ho,  hum;  who  would 
think  that  we,  the  envied  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John  Peter 
Norton,  would  indulge  in  such  a  strain  of  talk? 
It's  true,  indeed,  that  one-half  the  world  doesn't 
know  how  the  other  half  lives." 

"But  it  isn't  because  they  don't  try  to  find  out," 
said  his  wife,  with  a  touch  of  half-remembered 
indignation. 

Light  steps  and  a  little  burst  of  song  just  outside 
were  a  welcome  diversion  to  both.  And  when 
Helen  came  in,  her  face  radiant  with  anticipation, 
John  Norton  found  himself  catching  something  of 
her  buoyancy. 

"Oh,  father,"  she  cried,  "I  have  been  hunting 
for  you  everywhere.  I  want — " 

"Oh,  yes,  of  course  you  'want,'  "  he  interrupted 
indulgently,  "I  could  see  that  in  your  eyes." 

"But  this  is  different — different  from  anything. 
Just  listen :  this  morning  in  the  park  I  saw  a  little 
crippled  boy  riding  in  a  cart  hauled  by  his  brother. 
Poor  tot,  I  pitied  him,  and  asked  all  about  him. 
And  I  even  got  James  to  follow  them  home,  and 
he  says  the  family  is  wretchedly  poor,  but  seemed 
honest  and  worth  helping.  And  I  am  going  to 
help  them.  Now  I  want  some  money." 

John  Norton  looked  at  his  pretty  daughter,  all 
a-flutter  with  the  excitement  of  her  plea,  and 
pulled  out  a  cheque-book.  From  it  he  tore  a  leaf, 
wrote  something  and  handed  the  slip  of  paper  to 
the  girl. 

"This  will  pay  for  your  cripple's  treatment  by 
Dr.  Murch,  who's  the  best  man  in  America  at  the 
business,"  and,  after  a  moment's  thought,  he 

60 


MOONLIGHT  AND  SHADOW 

added,  "Your  appeal  suggests  something. 
Would  it  strike  your  fancy  should  I  enable  you  to 
found  a  hospital  for  children?" 

"Me?    Oh,  father!" 

"Well,  then,  it's  settled.  I'll  secure  a  site  to 
morrow,  and  set  an  architect  at  work  right  away. 
Have  you,  as  the  founder,  any  choice  for  a  loca 
tion?" 

"No-o-o — only  let  it  be  in  the  country  where  the 
poor  little  things  can  see  the  grass  and  flowers  and 
hear  the  birds.  They  must  get  well  then." 

"It  shall  be  as  you  like.  And,  Helen,  this  is 
almost  as  good  a  way  to  spend  money  as  on  horse- 
racing,  eh?" 

"Better;  far  better,"  replied  the  girl,  earnestly. 
She  could  not  be  jocose  at  such  a  moment.  "Rac 
ing  is  a  pretty  picture,  but  it's  cruel.  This  is  all 
kindness.  There's  no  comparison." 

"Millions  upon  millions  have  been  poured  into 
libraries  and  colleges,"  continued  Norton, 
thoughtfully.  "Why  not  turn  a  few  into  places 
for  building  up  feeble  little  children  into  men  and 
women  able  to  study  and  read  in  them?" 

"Oh,  you're  the  dearest  father  in  the  world,"  ex 
claimed  Helen  enthusiastically,  "and — and  the 
best  man,  too.  You're  always  doing  something 
that's  fine  and  noble  and — " 

"H-s-sh  ;  it's  a  state  secret,  little  girl.  You  might 
have  difficulty  in  convincing  the  'street'  that  you 
are  correct,  able  pleader  though  you  are.  .  .  . 
Hello,  what's  this?" 

A  servant  stood  before  him  with  a  card  on  a 
golden  tray.  The  card  bore  the  name  of  a  man 
who  three  days  before  had  tried  to  defraud  him  of 
some  railroad  bonds,  and  who  was  now  come  to 

61 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

sue  for  mercy.  Norton's  face  was  transformed; 
the  hard  lines  swept  into  their  accustomed  places 
and  his  voice  was  as  cold  as  the  ring  of  steel  upon 
ice  as  he  said  to  the  butler : — 

"Tell  the  gentleman  I  will  see  him  for  exactly 
three  minutes."  Mrs.  Norton  sighed,  but  there 
was  pleasure,  too,  in  the  end  of  the  evening's  talk ; 
she  was  filled  with  gratitude  that  her  daughter, 
spite  of  John  Norton's  prodigal  indulgence,  was 
still  unspoiled  and  a  girl  with  a  heart. 


62 


CHAPTER  VII. 

INDULGING  A  WHIM. 

IT)  HILIP  CRAIG'S  somewhat  uneasy  journey 
next  morning  to  the  great  office  of  John  P. 
Norton  was  interrupted  by  a  blockade  in  the 
central  subway  of  the  Municipal.     Something  had 
broken  clown,  it  seemed,  and  great  was  the  indig 
nation  of  the  passengers. 

"Hang  these  new-fangled  ether-motors,"  fumed 
Craig's  seatmate,  "the  old  electricity  was  bad 
enough,  but  this  is  twice  this  week  I've  been  de 
layed.  Now  in  my  day — " 

But  the  bit  of  ancient  history  was  cut  short  by 
the  renewed  speeding  up  of  the  train,  and  in  a  few 
seconds  Philip  found  himself  at  the  terminal  and 
upon  the  gigantic  lifting  platform  that  raised  the 
multitude  to  the  street. 

He  was  late  in  reaching  the  office,  and  ascer 
tained  that  his  chief  was  already  closeted  with 
someone,  while  the  anterooms  were  filled,  early  as 
it  was,  with  the  heterogeneous  crowd  that  daily 
besieges  a  great  financier.  Most  of  them  would 
never  reach  "John  Peter,"  and  they  knew  it;  yet 
even  to  be  seen  there  gave  them  a  certain  stamp  of 
importance  in  their  smaller  sets,  and  they  waited 
patiently  for  the  inevitable  denial,  more  or  less 
courteous  according  as  they  looked  more  or  less 
prosperous.  Others  were  well-known  clients  and 
associates  of  the  Norton  house. 

63 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

As  Craig  reached  his  newly-assigned  office  next 
the  very  penetralia  of  the  temple,  as  it  were,  he 
saw  a  door  open,  and  Henry  Partridge,  a  promi 
nent  real  estate  dealer,  come  out.  Then  Norton 
appeared. 

"Ah,  Craig,  just  in  time,"  he  said  cordially. 
"Come  in.  This  is  a  matter  in  which  you  are  to  be 
specially  concerned." 

In  the  beautiful  room  that  served  John  Norton 
as  private  office — more  like  an  apartment  in  some 
luxurious  club  than  a  business  man's  work-place — 
Craig  found  a  slender,  handsome,  middle-aged 
man  busily  occupied  with  a  paper  pad  held  on  his 
knee. 

"Craig,  this  is  Mr.  Armisted,  of  Armisted, 
Leighton  and  Mills,  you  know,"  said  Norton,  "Mr. 
Armisted,  Mr.  Craig,  my  private  secretary." 

The  great  architect  bowed  with  considerable 
deference  at  the  sound  of  Philip's  title.  He  had 
come  there  in  answer  to  Norton's  telephone  call 
of  the  night  before  asking  the  firm  to  send  "a 
man"  to  consult  on  some  new  work.  That  he,  the 
head  of  the  firm,  had  come  in  person  was  signifi 
cant  of  the  way  the  world  had  begun  to  regard 
this  John  Norton.  The  merest  hint  at  his  patron 
age  was  enough  to  arouse  the  interest  of  men  who 
were  themselves  princes  in  their  special  domains. 

"Now  Mr.  Armisted,"  said  he,  "our  matter  can 
quickly  be  disposed  of.  As  I  told  you  a  moment 
ago,  I  want  a  design  for  a  children's  hospital.  It 
will  be  erected  somewhere  on  the  Palisades.  Part 
ridge  has  undertaken  to  get  me  options  on  several 
good  sites,  and  you  are  the  man  of  all  others  to 
plan  the  building." 

The  architect  smiled  faintly  at  the  compliment, 
64 


INDULGING  A  WHIM 

took  off  his  glasses,  breathed  upon  them  and  then 
wiped  them  carefully  with  a  silk  handkerchief.  He 
wanted  the  commission,  but  professional  honor 
demanded  that  he  appear  calm. 

"Precisely,"  he  said  at  length.  "And  what — er 
— style  of  architecture,  if  any,  had  you  decided 
upon,  Mr.  Norton?" 

"I  don't  care,  if  only  it  is  as  unlike  a  hospital  as 
possible.  Build  it  as  if  it  were  the  country  resi 
dence  of  a  rich  man  with  a  lot  of  children.  But  be 
sure  it's  big  enough." 

"Ah,  I  catch  your  idea,  I  think,  Mr.  Norton; 
something  airy  and  homelike — say  in  the  Queen 
Anne  style." 

"M-m-m,"  returned  "John  Peter"  reflectively. 
"What  I'd  like  to  do  would  be  to  have  a  whole 
row  of  farmhouses  with  vines  all  over  the  porches 
and  eaves.  But  there — what  do  the  poor  children 
of  this  big  city  know  about  farmhouses?  They 
would  probably  be  terrified  and  homesick  in  them. 
Besides,  it's  impracticable,  I  suppose.  Use  your 
own  judgment,  Mr.  Armisted,  and  send  the  plans 
to  Mr.  Craig." 

"And — er — the  cost,  Mr.  Norton?"  This  was  a 
delicate  hint  that  there  would  be  a  cost,  but  merely 
insinuated  as  a  sort  of  after-thought  of  no  essential 
importance. 

"That  is  a  question  that  cannot  be  settled  until 
we  know  how  much  room  we  shall  require.  Wait 
a  moment;  perhaps  we  can  get  some  light  on  the 
subject." 

He  pressed  one  of  the  battery  of  buttons  con 
cealed  under  his  desk,  and  presently  a  boy  in  the 
Norton  uniform  stood  in  the  doorway. 

65 


ON   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Inquire  if  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley  is  waiting,"  he 
ordered. 

"I  sent  for  Mr.  Bentley,  gentlemen,"  explained 
Norton,  "because  I've  been  told  that  he  is  the 
best  informed  man  in  the  city  on  the  needs  and 
conditions  of  the  poor,  and  especially  children." 

"That  is  true,"  observed  Craig. 

"Do  you  know  him?" 

"Yes,  sir.    He  was  very  kind  to  me  as  a  boy." 

"Good.    You  will  work  well  together." 

Against  Philip's  wonderment  that  he  was  en 
listed  in  such  a  mission  and  given  so  high  a  rank, 
came  the  stronger  emotion  of  pleasure  that  he  was 
to  be  thrown  into  relations  with  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Bentley.  He  had  personal  knowledge  of  the 
goodness,  the  inspiring  optimism,  the  never-failing 
charity  of  the  clergyman  whose  whole  life  was 
spent  in  trying  to  create  the  millennium  from  what 
seemed  to  others  very  unsatisfactory  materials. 

To  Adoniram  Bentley  all  things  and  all  men  and 
women  were  constructively  good.  Evil — and  he 
knew  it  well  from  a  lifetime  of  practical  missionary 
work — was  to  him  only  a  certain  undesirable  for 
eign  quantity  which  interfered  with  the  growth  of 
what  he  recognized  as  of  value  in  the  outcasts  with 
whom  he  was  brought  into  contact.  It  was  as  a 
chemical  element  that  could  be  sent  away  harm 
less  into  the  atmosphere  if  only  the  right  precipi 
tation  were  made. 

"If  he  had  only  had  our  chance,"  was  his  favor 
ite  phrase  when  speaking  of  some  great  sinner. 
Had  he  met  fallen  Lucifer  himself,  he  would  un 
questionably  have  attempted  to  show  that  the 
cloven  hoof,  tail  and  horns  did  not  completely  con 
ceal  the  underlying  goodness  of  the  prince  of  dark- 

66 


INDULGING  A  WHIM 

ness.  If  ever  he  mentioned  the  devil  in  his  mission 
room  talks  it  must  have  been  with  an  apology.  His 
great  affection  went  out  to  mankind  in  its  fullest 
ilower  when  human  souls  were  deepest  in  the  mire 
of  disgrace  and  despair,  for  then  he  felt  that  their 
need  of  someone's  love  was  the  greatest.  Sleek, 
contented  churchmen  called  him  "fool;"  but  for 
this  fool  despairing,  half-crazed  women  in  bonds 
had  been  known  to  pray  to  a  God  to  whom  appeal 
had  been  unknown  since  the  lisped  prayer  of  baby 
hood. 

As  the  good  clergyman  entered  John  Norton's 
office,  presenting  his  physical  attributes  in  neces 
sary  comparison  to  those  of  the  three  well-made 
men  who  rose  to  receive  him,  he  was  another  liv 
ing  example  in  the  long  line  of  those  who  arise  to 
demonstrate  the  fatuity  of  their  parents.  Could 
the  Bentleys  of  the  former  generation  have  fore 
seen  that  their  son  would  not  attain  even  the  five 
feet  four,  of  average  womanhood,  they  would 
scarcely  have  named  him  Adoniram — "lord  of 
height."  For  the  fact  was  that,  with  all  the  advan 
tages  of  a  tall  hat  and  thick-soled  shoes,  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Bentley  could  hardly  rise  to  the  five-foot 
mark. 

Nor  could  his  face,  by  any  of  the  canons  of  por 
traiture,  be  considered  handsome.  With  its  broad 
nose,  its  large,  up-curved  mouth  and  its  wide,  high 
forehead,  it  had  been  likened  by  some  to  the  coun 
tenance  of  the  cow.  But  those  who  said  that  did 
not,  or  could  not  realize  the  beauty  of  the  tender 
gray  eyes,  a  beatitude  and  a  benison  shining  forth 
from  folds  and  rolls  of  inexpressive  flesh.  At  the 
recital  of  wrong  or  woe  those  wonderful  eyes 
might  change  expression  with  the  progress  of  the 

67 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

tale,  but  they  never  lost  their  gleam  of  compas 
sion.  There  was  a  something  in  his  gaze  that  few 
could  withstand. 

Prison  officials,  calloused  as  they  were  and  wont 
to  make  merry  over  the  seamy  sides  of  life,  recog 
nized  this  strange  influence.  "Another  striped 
bird  gone  daffy  over  Parson  Bentley's  hypnotic 
eye,"  they  would  say,  and  there  was  truth  in  the 
quip.  Men  and  women,  cursing  their  Maker  and 
themselves,  often  became  calm  under  his  pitying 
look;  expecting  censure,  they  found  tenderness; 
looking  for  the  lash  of  a  clerical  whip,  they  re 
ceived  the  balm  of  a  minister  to  their  wounds. 

Such  was  the  man  at  whom  John  Norton  gazed 
rather  curiously  and  almost  doubtingly  for  a  mo 
ment.  Their  glances  met,  and  the  financier's 
uncertainty  vanished  in  a  moment.  He  greeted 
the  visitor  pleasantly,  and  introduced  him  to  the 
architect.  Craig  and  the  clergyman  shook  hands 
cordially. 

"I  want  your  assistance,  Mr.  Bentley,"  began 
Norton,  "in  a  matter  of  some  importance  to  myself 
and  another.  To  be  brief,  we  are  going  to  build 
a  hospital  for  the  children  of  the  poor.  I  desire 
your  opinion,  as  an  expert,  as  to  the  extent  of  the 
need  for  such  an  institution." 

"The  need  ?  Enormous,  and  ever  growing,  Mr. 
Norton.  No  one  could  estimate  it  without  falling 
far  short  of  the  reality." 

"Could  two  hundred  child  patients  be  found?" 

"I  could  give  you  the  addresses  of  twice  that 
number  from  my  own  books." 

"Worse  than  I  imagined,"  said  Norton.  "Mr. 
Armisted,  it's  pretty  clear  that  we  must  be  more 
particular  about  room  than  about  architecture. 

68 


INDULGING  A  WHIM 

Now,  Mr.  Bentley,  if  we  should  provide  room  for 
a  thousand  children  do  you  think  we  would  over 
shoot  the  mark?" 

"Not  at  all,  my  dear  sir,"  returned  the  little 
clergyman,  striving  to  quell  the  tide  of  excitement 
that  rose  from  his  heart  to  his  voice.  He  was  stag 
gered  at  the  largeness  of  the  plan,  but  filled  with 
delight  at  the  prospect  of  a  vital  beneficence  that 
meant  so  much  for  the  morale  of  the  city. 

"Well,  then,"  continued  "John  Peter,"  in  his 
most  matter-of-fact  tone,  "let  it  be  for  a  thousand. 
And  Mr.  Armisted  will  provide  for  additions  as 
they  are  required.  I  would  be  happy,  Mr.  Bentley, 
if  you  would  act  as  adviser  in  the  construction  of 
the  building  and  as  investigator  afterward.  We 
need  such  men  as  you.  Mr.  Craig,  who  supervises 
the  work,  tells  me  that  you  are  acquainted." 

"We  are,  sir,  and  it  was  a  very  pleasant  ac 
quaintance." 

"Now,  gentlemen."  continued  Norton,  inci 
sively,  "the  work  will  begin  at  once.  It  only 
remains  for  me  to  say  that  the  hospital  is,  in  a 
certain  sense,  the  suggestion  of  my  daughter 
Helen." 

"Indeed!  How  considerate,  how  touching!" 
murmured  the  architect,  imbued  with  all  the  ap 
preciation  aroused  by  the  assurance  of  a  commis 
sion  on  a  very  costly  building. 

Norton  flashed  a  keen  glance  at  the  speaker  and 
then  at  Mr.  Bentley.  The  clergyman  said  noth 
ing,  but  his  eyes  were  eloquent,  as  always.  "The 
name,  I  suppose,  should  be  decided." 

"I  would  suggest  the  'Helen  Norton  Hospital,'" 
observed  Armisted. 

"I  think  not.  .  Two  names  I  especially  detest  are 
69 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

'hospital'  and  'home.'  And  my  daughter  wouldn't 
care  for  any  notoriety.  In  fact,  Mr.  Bentley,  why 
will  you  not  stand  sponsor  for  the  whole  affair? 
Let  it  be  understood  that  the  retreat  is  the  con 
tribution  of  wealthy  men.  It  would  please  me  if 
you  would,  and  'Bentley-on-Hudson'  strikes  me  as 
a  particularly  good  name." 

"I  shall  be  most  happy  to  serve  you,"  exclaimed 
the  clergyman,  grasping  Norton's  hand  warmly 
and  giving  him  a  glance  that  affected  the  financier 
strangely.  "And  now  I  will  take  my  leave,  if  you 
please,  as  I  have  many  calls  to  make." 

Armisted,  also,  prepared  to  go. 

''Do  I  understand  you  correctly,  Mr.  Norton? 
You  want  plans  for  a  building  that  will  accommo 
date  a  thousand  patients  as  well  as  nurses  and 
physicians?" 

"Precisely." 

"But  have  you  reckoned  the  cost?" 

"No ;  that's  your  detail." 

"It  will  be  nearly  two  million  dollars." 

"Make  it  quite  two  millions,  then.  There's  luck 
in  round  numbers.  Mr.  Craig  and  you  are  ex 
pected  to  see  that  it  all  goes  into  the  building  and 
not  into  some  contractor's  pocket.  Good  day,  sir." 

Norton  turned  to  his  secretary  with  one  of  his 
rare  smiles. 

"A  good  deal  of  money,  perhaps  you  think, 
Craig,  for  a  girl's  whim.  And  yet  it  may  not  be 
all  whim.  .  .  .  \Yhen  I  was  a  lad  a  brother,  crip 
pled  by  a  fall  from  a  hayrack,  although  my  elder 
by  several  years,  was  in  my  care  until  he  died,  a 
victim  to  poverty  and  the  ignorance  of  a  country 
surgeon.  Such  cases  shall  be  less  common,  if  I 
can  bring  it  about.  .  .  .  What  is  it,  boy?" 

70 


INDULGING  A  WHIM 

"Mr.  Andrew  Haven  asks  if  he  can  see  you." 

"Haven?  Show  him  in  at  once.  Wait  a  min 
ute,  Craig." 

In  less  than  half  that  time  Haven  shuffled  in, 
barely  avoiding  a  fall  over  the  Turkish  rug  at  the 
threshold.  He  was  apologetically  effusive,  but  his 
chief  cut  him  short  without  ceremony. 

"Well,  what  result?" 

"The  Jamesons  say  that  they  will  not  sell  at  any 
price." 

Norton's  left  hand  clenched  in  an  instant,  and 
his  eyes  grew  stern. 

"They  won't,  eh?  Did  you  use  all  the  argu 
ments  I  recommended?" 

"Yes,  but  they — pardon  me,  but  they  did — they 
said  that  they  were  perfectly  able  to  conduct  their 
own  business  in  their  own  way,  and  rather  than 
bury  it  in  a  syndicate,  they  would  destroy  it." 

"We'll  try  and  accommodate  them."  He 
touched  a  button  with  a  swift  gesture. 

"Ask  Mr.  Hastings  to  step  here,"  he  said  to  the 
answering  boy.  Hastings  was  a  sort  of  superior 
clerk  who  enjoyed  his  employer's  full  confidence. 

"Mr.  Hastings,  you  were  once  in  the  hay,  grain 
and  cement  business,  I  believe,"  he  said  when  the 
clerk  appeared. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Do  you  know  this  firm?"  He  handed  a  card 
to  the  subordinate  on  which  was  written  an 
address. 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Secure  a  building  near  them,  fill  it  with  the 
best  of  everything  the  Jamesons  carry,  and  under 
sell  them  twenty-five  per  cent.  Meet  every  drop 
they  make.  Do  you  understand  ?" 


CW  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Yes,  sir." 

Draw  on  the  cashier  for  what  money  you  want, 
and  keep  your  own  counsel.  If  you  break  them 
in  a  month,  you  get  ten  thousand  dollars.  For 
every  month's  delay,  you  lose  a  thousand  dollars 
of  the  bonus.  Your  salary  will  go  on  as  usual,  but 
don't  let  me  see  you  until  your  work  is  done. 
Good  morning." 

Craig  went  back  to  his  office  marveling  at  the 
revelations  of  one  brief  hour.  But  in  the  light  of 
what  he  had  seen  he  could  only  feel  that  there 
must  be  some  just  cause  for  the  crushing  of  the 
Jamesons. 


72 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET. 

IT  was  not  long  before  the  newspapers  of  the  day 
were  exciting  themselves  and  their  readers 
with  heavily  displayed  advance  accounts  of  the 
great  dinner  that  was  to  be  given  a  select  coterie 
of  guests  by  John  Peter  Norton,  in  honor  of  the 
victory  of  King  Capital.  It  was  agreed  by  all  the 
prophetic  scribes  that  no  such  dinner  had  ever 
been  given  as  this  was  to  be,  and  that  probably 
emulation  would  be  stifled  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

There  was  a  fine  air  of  mystery  over  the  whole 
thing  that  set  the  populace  in  a  delightful  state; 
no  paper  pretended  to  be  able  to  give  the  complete 
details  of  the  affair,  and,  consequently,  all  dis 
agreed  on  most  essential  points.  But  they  were 
unanimous  in  saying  that  the  great  figures  of  the 
metropolis  and  of  the  country  were  to  be  there, 
and  that  expense  was  absolutely  out  of  the  con 
sideration.  Pictures  of  Norton,  his  family,  King 
Capital,  "Doc"  Bayles  and  "Muggsy"  became  as 
familiar  as  the  advertisements  of  the  newest  soap, 
and  long  biographical  articles  of  the  "typical 
American  sportsman,"  plentifully  bestrewn  with 
the  flowers  of  fancy,  filled  the  pages  of  the  Sunday 
journals. 

The  newspapers  and  Andrew  Haven  did  not 
agree  in  one  very  important  particular.  That  in 
dustrious  henchman  was  careful  to  state  in  the 

73 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

tentative  invitations  he  was  commissioned  by  Nor 
ton  to  make,  that  the  banquet  was  in  honor  of 
Count  Sandstrom.  As  an  emissary  of  this  sort  he 
was  admirable;  his  family  connections  gave  him 
the  traditional  right  of  go-between  for  the  great, 
and  his  ingratiating,  if  superficial  simplicity, 
brought  him  more  success  than  a  more  straightfor 
ward  man  could  possibly  have  attained. 

Norton  issued  no  formal  invitations  until  thirty- 
six  men  of  unquestioned  eminence  had  signified 
their  willingness  to  attend.  It  was  no  easy  matter 
to  get  some  of  these,  even  Haven  found,  for  ac 
ceptance  would  inevitably  stamp  Norton  with 
their  public  endorsement,  but  the  wily  agent  had 
one  trump  card  in  reserve  when  all  else  failed :  the 
occasion  was  to  be  in  honor  of  that  thorough 
sportsman  and  best  of  losers,  Count  Sandstrom, 
and  Messrs.  So-and-So  and  Whatd'y'caH'im — 
naming  the  two  most  prominent  thus  far  enlisted 
— were  sure  to  be  present.  To  refuse  under  such 
conditions  was  certain  to  be  construed  as  an 
affront  to  the  Count,  and  none  cared  to  figure  in 
that  light. 

Haven  appeared  before  his  patron  one  morning 
in  a  particularly  felicitous  mood.  His  list  of  thirty- 
six  had  a  little  cross  after  every  name. 

"They've  all  accepted,  Norton,"  he  chuckled. 
"I  had  a  note  from  Entwistle  this  morning.  He 
was  hard  to  get — pardon  me,  but  he  was — the 
hardest.  Said  he'd  consider  the  matter.  I  had  to 
use  diplomacy.  I  saw  Van  Renssalaer  Low  and 
rather  hinted  that  Entwistle  might  not  be  invited. 
I  knew  they  were  to  meet  that  night  at  the  Len 
oxes'." 

"And  that  Low  would  tell  him  that  society  was 
74 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

agog  over  the  affair.    Very  clever,  Andrew,  very." 

The  little  man  beamed  at  this  unqualified  praise 
from  his  chief.  He  had  often  been  censured  just 
as  heartily. 

"Well,  we've  got  them  all,"  said  he,  trium 
phantly. 

"Of  course  we  have,"  returned  Norton,  "it  was 
the  thirty-six  that  did  it.  Restrict  the  opportuni 
ties  for  anything  to  a  given  numeral,  not  too  large, 
and  you  arouse  rivalry ;  when  rivalry  and  curiosity 
combine,  there  is  no  resisting  it.  As  for  the  latter 
element,  the  papers  have  done  their  work  well." 

"Thirty-six?"  repeated  Haven,  thoughtfully. 
"You  said  there  were  to  be  forty-two  covers." 

"You  are  coming,  too,  aren't  you,  Andrew?  Or 
must  I  use  some  special  sort  of  argument  with 
youf" 

"My — my  dear  Norton,  surely  you — " 

"Very  well,  then,  you  accept.  I  thought  you 
would.  There  are  consequently,  you  and  I,  Craig 
and  the  guest." 

"Forty,"'  said  Haven,  counting  on  his  fingers. 

"The  other  two,  eh?  Wait  and  see.  Perhaps 
there'll  be  another  vacant  chair — the  noble  guest 
still  remains  to  be  invited." 

Haven's  cheery  countenance  was  transformed  at 
a  word. 

"Yes,  I  know.    I  suppose  I — " 

"No,  Andrew,  your  troubles  are  over,"  said  the 
other  with  a  grim  smile.  "See  here." 

He  held  up  for  Haven's  inspection  a  handsomely 
engraved  card  of  invitation.  Crossing  a  golden 
horseshoe  were  the  American  and  German  flags 
embossed  in  colors.  The  text  was  this : — 


75 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"You  are  respectfully  invited  to  be 
present  at  a  dinner  to  be  given  on  Tues 
day  evening,  August  fourteen,  in  mem 
ory  of  the  June  meeting  of  the  American 
Handicap  Association  at  Oceanic  and 
to  meet — " 

There  then  followed  the  names  of  the  thirty-six 
selected  men  who  were  to  give  the  banquet  its 
especial  tone.  Haven  rapidly  went  over  the  list 
with  ever-increasing  wonderment. 

"But — but,  I  don't  see  Count  Sandstrom's 
name,"  he  almost  gasped. 

"Why  should  you,"  asked  Norton,  coolly,  "that 
is  his  invitation.  Here's  yours;  you  will  not  find 
your  name  there." 

"Why — why,  then,  they  are  all  different?" 

"Precisely." 

"And  you  had  thirty-six  plates  engraved?" 

"You  are  an  excellent  logician,  but  a  poor 
mathematician,  Haven.  I  had  thirty-nine  en 
graved,  as  you  will  see  on  a  moment's  calculation." 

"And  you  had  them  all  made  before  you  knew?" 

"When  I  begin  a  thing  I  usually  carry  it 
through  successfully,  Mr.  Haven." 

"And— and  Sandstrom  ?" 

"He  will  be  there,"  replied  the  financier,  with  a 
calm  assurance  that  could  not  but  satisfy  Haven 
on  that  score.  Still  there  were  things  that  per 
plexed  him. 

"There — there/'  he  repeated  vacantly,  "but 
where?  I  see  nothing  on  the  invitation." 

His  patron  handed  him  a  smaller  and  plainer 
card.  "This  will  accompany  each  invitation,"  he 
said. 

76 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

Haven  read :  "The  guests  will  kindly  assemble 
at  or  before  7.30  p.  m.,  in  the  private  car  Barba- 
rossa  at  the  South  Central  Station  of  the  L.  I.  & 
M.  P.  R.  R." 

"Ah,  I  see,"  exclaimed  Haven  with  all  the  joy 
of  a  great  discovery,  "at  the  shore  ?" 

"Your  curiosity  will  lend  zest  to  your  appetite, 
Andrew,  so  I  believe  I  won't  tell  you." 

"But  'Barbarossa' ?  Strange  there  should  be  a 
car  by  that  name." 

"Haven,  your  density  surprises  me.  There  isn't, 
but  there  will  be.  Ten  days  is  a  long  time." 


On  the  evening  of  the  fourteenth  the  splendid 
stable  of  John  Norton  near  the  Oceanic  race 
course  was  a  scene  of  peculiar  and  very  unique 
activity.  The  great  harness  room  had  been 
cleared,  and,  instead  of  a  chief  trainer,  the  famous 
chef  of  the  most  celebrated  restaurant  in  New 
York  was  in  command.  Under  him  was  an  army 
of  cooks,  servers  and  waiters,  and  his  keen  eye 
took  in  every  detail  of  the  complete  culinary  out 
fit  that  had  come  down  in  a  car  that  morning.  It 
had  been  said  that  no  banquet  could  be  served 
successfully  outside  the  city,  and  "Christoforo" 
was  here  to  give  the  lie  to  the  assertion.  He  had 
been  told  by  Norton  to  make  the  effort  of  his  life, 
and  the  promise  of  a  thousand-dollar  special  fee 
if  he  outdid  his  own  celebrated  self  had  a  potent 
effect. 

Clever  decorators  had  transformed  the  stable 
loft  into  a  place  of  exquisite  beauty  and  brilliancy. 
The  German  and  the  American  colors,  in  silk, 
covered  the  walls  in  festoons,  caught  up,  here  and 

77 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

there,  by  great  golden  horseshoes,  while  the  double 
eagles  of  the  Kaiser  and  the  great  seal  of  the 
United  States  glowed  in  colored  lights  at  either 
end.  Strange  prismatic  effects  flashed  from  the 
ceiling  like  an  incrustation  of  diamonds,  while  the 
table  was  a  mass  of  rare  flowers,  costly  crystal  and 
burnished  plate.  Even  the  guests,  hardened  as 
they  were  to  the  magnificence  of  special  dining, 
were  aroused  from  their  usual  nonchalance  as  they 
entered  the  room. 

It  was  a  company  that  filled  Andrew  Haven 
with  a  glee  that  was  almost  visible.  In  its  repre 
sentation  of  the  most  powerful  elements  of  New 
York  life  it  exceeded  anything  within  his  remem 
brance,  and  he  had  gotten  it  together!  If  "John 
Peter"  was  elated,  none  could  have  suspected  it 
under  his  mask  of  calm  courtesy  and  complete 
self-possession.  He  knew  that  to  betray  the  slight 
est  gratification  would  be  as  disastrous  as  to  the 
card  player  who  holds  a  phenomenally  brilliant 
hand. 

The  mayor  of  the  city  was  a  guest,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  as  well  as  the  senior  senator  and  the 
most  famous  congressman  of  the  state.  Norton 
wanted  them  to  lend  official  status  to  the  feast. 
But  far  above  mere  politicians  he  held  the  great 
princes  of  finance  and  industry,  and  they  were  all 
at  hand.  Had  an  earthquake  suddenly  swallowed 
the  stables,  he  thought  with  satisfaction,  the  entire 
world  would  see  a  panic  the  like  of  which  had 
never  occurred  since  the  days  of  Noah. 

He  saw  at  his  board  Van  Renssalaer  Cruger 
Low,  far  prouder  of  his  descent  than  of  his  mil 
lions;  Stuyvesant  Lord,  a  railroad  king  whose 
boast  it  was  that  with  a  few  strokes  of  his  pen  he 

78 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

could  command  the  commerce  of  the  country  to 
stand  still — a  modern  Joshua  with  a  round,  bullet 
head  almost  destitute  of  hair  and  an  affectation  of 
illiterate  speech ;  Belmont  Drexel,  a  great  banker 
with  branch  houses  in  every  part  of  the  globe; 
Herbert  Fish  Wilson,  the  owner  of  a  hundred  im 
mense  retail  stores  in  as  many  large  cities ;  Biddle 
Jaffrey,  whose  private  flag  flew  over  two-thirds  of 
the  shipping  of  the  country;  Ward  Neilson,  the 
inventor  and  sole  owner  of  the  new  light  discs 
that  had  brought  him  many  millions — a  youngish, 
handsome,  athletic  man  who  had  bested  in  a  pri 
vate  bout  the  greatest  pugilist  of  the  day ;  Gibson 
Davies,  keeper  of  the  granaries  of  the  west ;  Louis 
Rhinelander,  head  of  the  Allied  Metal  Trade ; 
Evarts  Choate  Cleveland,  the  most  brilliant  of  cor 
poration  lawyers;  the  others  were  of  equal  rank 
in  their  especial  spheres.  Only  the  arts  and  letters 
were  unrepresented. 

At  the  close  of  the  banquet  proper,  a  mar- 
velously  effective  combination  of  German  and 
American  dishes,  John  Norton  rose  from  his  place 
at  the  head  of  the  table.  Someone,  perhaps 
Haven,  had  called  for  a  speech  and  it  was  forth 
coming — as  clearly  foreordained  as  any  decree  of 
the  fates. 

''Gentlemen,"  began  the  host,  "  you  have  called 
for  a  word  from  'the  winner  of  the  Handicap.'  He 
is  in  his  stall  with  a  double  portion  of  oats  in  honor 
of  the  occasion,  and  is  doubtless  by  this  time  more 
speechless  than  usual.  If  I  must  speak  for  him,  I 
must  say  first  what  he  certainly  would  say  were  he 
given  the  opportunity:  that  is  that  to  the  gallant 
Barbarossa  and  his  noble  owner,  to  conquer  whom 

79 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

it  was  an  honor  and  a  privilege,  he  extends  a  heart 
felt  greeting." 

"Good!"  shouted  half  a  dozen  men,  "very 
neat — so  do  we."  , 

"And  now,  gentlemen,"  continued  the  speaker, 
"I  offer  this  toast  to  be  drunk  standing:  long  life 
and  happiness  and  every  victory — save  one — to 
our  distinguished  guest,  Count  Sandstrom,  of  Ger 
many." 

With  a  shout  of  approval  the  guests  rose  to 
their  feet  and  drank  to  the  smiling  nobleman — 
Norton  in  water,  as  usual.  After  a  few  more 
happy  phrases,  the  speaker,  suddenly  throwing  an 
impressive  gravity  into  his  voice,  made  the  most 
careless  of  his  hearers  straighten  into  attention. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "this  is  a  gathering  of 
representative  men.  We  are  alone.  Nothing  that 
is  said  here  to-night  can  be  given  to  the  outside 
world  save  through  us.  It  is  on  my  mind  to  speak 
frankly  to  you,  if  I  may." 

"Of  course  you  may — Go  ahead,  Norton — Let's 
hear  it,"  were  the  cries  around  the  table. 

"I  thank  you.  I  realize  that  the  idea  of  this 
gathering,  with  me  at  the  head  of  the  table,  would 
have  been  laughed  at  as  an  impossibility  not  long 
ago.  Yet  we  are  here,  which  is  one  more  proof 
that  the  impossible  is  always  possible  in  certain 
contingencies.  I  realize,  too,  that  this  assembly 
of  representative  men  of  this  and  another  nation" 
— and  he  bowed  gravely  to  Count  Sandstrom, 
seated  at  his  right — "has  further  significance  than 
its  social  side,  and  I  thank  you  for  the  confidence 
it  assures." 

At  this  clear  declaration  of  Norton's  motive,  the 
more  conservative  of  his  guests,  mellow  though 

80 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

they  were  with  perfect  food  and  the  choicest  of 
vintages,  looked  at  one  another  in  a  sort  of  vague 
alarm.  This  then,  was  the  construction  that  would 
be  placed  by  all  the  world  on  their  wining  and  din 
ing  with  John  Norton.  But  the  trap  had  been 
sprung  and  there  was  no  withdrawal.  Craig,  who 
had  been  a  rather  silent  member  of  the  party,  felt 
a  new  admiration  for  the  courage  and  coolness  of 
his  chief;  he  waited  with  intense  interest  to  see 
what  would  come  next  from  this  extraordinary 
man. 

"Nine  years  ago,"  resumed  Norton,  "I  came  to 
this  city  a  stranger.  Perhaps  even  now  you  do  not 
know  as  much  of  me  as  you  should.  Thirty-one 
years  ago  this  month  I  told  the  farmer  for  whom  I 
worked  as  a  sort  of  superintendent  that  I  should 
leave  his  employ  after  the  harvest.  He  was  aston 
ished,  asked  what  was  wrong  and  offered  me  an  in 
creased  salary.  I  thanked  him,  but  said  my 
determination  was  strong  to  cut  out  a  furrow  for 
myself. 

"The  next  winter  I  spent  in  the  study  of  modern 
agriculture  and  in  prospecting.  In  the  early 
spring  I  put  some  of  the  few  hundreds  I  had  left  in 
a  tract — immense,  you  would  call  it,  but  small  out 
there — of  arid  land  near  the  foot  of  a  small  chain  of 
hills — mountains  they  would  be  termed  in  the 
east.  The  land  was  cheap  because  no  one  wanted 
it.  I  bonded  more  land  for  several  miles  on  three 
sides  of  my  territory.  Those  who  were  interested 
enough  to  pay  any  attention  to  what  I  was  doing 
said  I  was  crazy  or  a  fool.  Perhaps  I  was.  While 
hunting  in  those  hills  two  or  three  years  pre 
viously,  however,  I  had  found  several  streams 
dashing  down  their  sides  whose  steady  flow  the 

81 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

severest  season  of  drought  did  not  affect.  The 
problem  was  to  divert  that  water  to  my  land. 

"I  thought  of  piping  the  water,  but  material  was 
expensive  and  I  had  little  money.  What  I  did  was 
to  construct  troughs  of  boards  and  run  them  over 
my  fields.  They  were  clumsy  contrivances,  and 
the  people  of  the  farms  on  the  other  side  of  the  hills 
laughed  at  me.  But  the  water  was  all  that  was 
needed.  For  centuries  this  land  had  been  storing 
up  fertilizing  substances  which  needed  only  the 
magic  touch  of  moisture  to  spring  into  enormous 
activity.  On  those  arid  acres  I  raised  enough  corn 
and  grain  in  two  years  to  pay  every  obligation, 
buy  all  my  bonded  land  and  hire  a  force  of  men  to 
whom  I  gave  employment  all  the  year  round.  I 
bought  and  bought  land  till  my  acreage  was  far 
up  in  the  hundreds  of  thousands. 

"Then  my  rivals  began  to  take  notice  of  me.  In 
the  third  year  an  attempt  was  made  to  destroy  my 
work.  One  night  I  stood  at  the  gates  of  my  head 
reservoir  with  two  or  three  faithful  fellows  and 
beat  back  a  crowd  of  forty  armed  men.  They  in 
voked  the  law,  but  I  beat  them  again.  They  tried 
to  crush  me  commercially;  I  did  crush  them.  I 
undersold  them  in  the  open  market,  and  still  made 
money.  They  fought  hard,  and  when  their  means 
gave  out,  resorted  to  mortgages.  It  was  my 
agents  who  lent  them  the  money.  I  didn't  fore 
close,  for  the  loss  of  their  property  would  have 
been  as  nothing  compared  with  the  thought  that 
they  were  dependent  on  my  mercy." 

By  this  time  every  eye  was  intently  fixed  on  the 
massive,  determined  face  of  the  man  who  made  so 
little  of  acknowledging  his  own  vindictiveness, 
who,  in  his  quiet,  self-contained  way,  boasted  of 

82 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

his  own  power.  Such  a  speech  at  such  a  time  not 
one  of  the  assemblage  had  ever  heard  before. 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  went  on  the  emotionless 
voice,  "my  farming  days  have  long  been  over. 
From  the  field  to  the  produce  market  was  an  easy 
step,  and  thence  to  stocks  and  bonds.  You  know 
my  recent  history  \vell  enough.  I  relate  my  early 
experiences  from  no  desire  for  self-glorification, 
but  simply  to  illustrate  what  I  wish  to  impress 
upon  you :  that  I  do  not  undertake  a  venture  in 
which  I  do  not  thoroughly  believe,  and  that,  when 
begun,  the  work  is  completed,  cost  what  it  may. 
Some  of  you  are  already  allied  with  me ;  it  is  right 
that  they  should  know  my  principles.  Some  of 
you  may  be  my  antagonists ;  I  am  willing  that  they 
should  know  me  as  I  am.  I  believe  that  a  great 
business  enterprise  successfully  completed  is  a 
blessing  to  the  world,  and  that  if  a  thing  is  worth 
doing,  it  is  worth  a  fight.  Whether  you  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  or  face  to  face  with  me,  you 
will  find  that  I  act  as  I  speak. 

"Gentlemen,  I  again  propose  the  toast  of  our 
guest,  Count  Sandstrom." 

The  effect  of  this  dramatically  abrupt  transition 
from  Norton's  bold  statement  of  his  methods  and 
purposes  to  the  complimentary  mention  of  Count 
Sandstrom  was  strong  with  the  guests.  It  was  as 
if  this  rugged  product  of  the  western  mountains 
and  deserts  had  thrown  the  gauntlet  in  behalf  of 
himself  and  America  at  the  feet  of  the  scion  of 
centuries  of  European  wealth. 

If  anything  of  the  sort  occurred  to  Count  Sand 
strom,  he  gave  no  sign.  His  answering  speech 
was  brief,  courtly  and  gracious.  He  thanked 
America  for  its  kindness,  and  hinted  that  he  might 

83 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

some  day  return  to  contest  the  great  prize  that  he 
had  so  nearly  won.  He  even  referred  to  his  host's 
entertaining  story  of  his  early  struggles  with  a  skil 
fully  flattering  phrase  or  two,  declaring  that  the 
possessor  of  inherited  wealth  was  indebted  to  the 
self-made  man  for  an  impressive  lesson  in  manhood. 
He  closed  with  a  happily  expressed  wish  for  a  con 
tinuation  of  the  cordial  relations  between  Ger 
many  and  the  United  States. 

There  were  little  speeches  by  several  of  the  other 
guests,  cautious,  courteous  and  meaningless. 
Then  there  walked  into  the  room,  at  a  precon 
certed  signal,  two  odd  and  rather  uncomfortable 
figures.  They  were  the  thin  "Doc"  Bayles  and  his 
offspring  "Muggsy."  As  they  dropped  sheepishly 
into  the  two  vacant  chairs,  a  hearty  round  of  ap 
plause  was  their  portion,  which  they  acknowl 
edged  by  appreciative  grins.  Withal,  there  was  a 
look  of  importance  on  their  faces,  as  if  they  were 
the  custodians  of  some  tremendous  secret. 

Now  the  orchestra  struck  up  "Hail  to  the  Chief" 
and  every  light  in  the  great  room  was  suddenly 
extinguished.  Then  slowly  the  wall  of  the  upper 
end  slid  back  and  there  before  the  astonished  eyes 
of  the  banqueters  was  revealed  the  figure  of  "King 
Capital"  set  in  a  massive  golden  frame  and  bril 
liantly  lighted  by  cunningly  concealed  bulbs.  So 
motionless  was  the  beautiful  animal  that  most  of 
the  spectators  believed  the  picture  a  painted  one, 
until  "Muggsy"  approached,  when  the  horse  whin 
nied  his  recognition. 


The  newspapers  next  morning  gave  much  space 
and  black  type  to  the  dinner,  nor  did  they  lose  a 

84 


THROWING  DOWN  THE  GAUNTLET 

single  detail  of  the  significance  of  Norton's  speech 
and  the  attendance  of  the  great  figures  of  the  city. 
Some  of  these  same  great  figures  were  mystified 
as  to  the  origin  of  such  unusual  journalistic  accu 
racy.  They  did  not  take  into  account,  however, 
the  industry  and  acumen  of  Mr.  Andrew  Haven. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

ON    THE    PALISADES. 

ON  a  beautiful  afternoon  in  early  October  a 
little  party  went  to  the  Palisades  of  the 
Hudson  on  a  pilgrimage  that  was  to  help 
bring  a  bit  of  the  millennium  to  suffering  little 
children.  It  was  an  oddly  assorted  group :  Philip 
Craig,  earnest,  considerate,  firm  in  his  belief  in  the 
ultimate  happiness  of  the  world:  Armisted,  the 
architect,  upright  and  downright  in  his  rather  in 
sinuating  way  and  something  of  a  pessimist  as  to 
the  motives  of  men ;  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley,  the  friend 
of  sinners,  the  tenderly  tolerant  and  gentle;  Mrs. 
Norton,  strong  under  her  placid  demeanor,  and 
Helen,  buoyant  with  the  light-hearted  joy  of 
youth,  easily  turned  from  sunshine  to  shower  and 
back  to  sunshine  again. 

Now  as  they  stood  on  the  splendid  height,  far 
above  the  broad  band  of  blue  that  rippled  under 
the  mellow  sun  and  flashed  with  its  myriad  com 
merce,  the  delight  of  life  was  strong  within  the 
girl,  and  Craig,  too,  caught  the  infection  and  was 
filled  with  a  strange  desire  to  laugh  his  gladness 
into  the  bracing  air.  Before  them  gleamed  the 
towers  of  the  teeming  city;  behind,  all  the  riotous 
tints  of  autumn  on  tree  and  bush  and  turf.  Here 
was  to  be  built  "Bentley-on-Hudson"  upon  land 
that  Partridge,  the  real  estate  king,  had  finally 
succeeded  in  securing  for  the  hospital;  here  were 

86 


ON  THE  PALISADES 

to  centre  all  the  plans  of  Helen  Norton,  in  whose 
company  Craig  had  been  thrown  by  the  force  of 
circumstance.  If  he  wished  that  the  building  be 
slow,  it  was  not  that  he  was  indifferent  to  the 
needs  of  the  poor,  but  rather  that  the  good  red 
blood  in  his  veins  answered  to  the  nearness  of  a 
beautiful  and  enthusiastic  young  girl  and  would 
not  rest  until  its  call  had  been  satisfied. 

"It  is  a  lovely  spot,"  said  Mrs.  Norton,  as  she 
scanned  the  horizon  from  north  to  south.  "How 
the  poor  little  things  will  enjoy  it,  will  they  not, 
Mr.  Bentley?" 

"Enjoy  it,  my  dear  lady,  they  will  positively 
think  they  are  in  heaven — when  the  pain  will  let 
them,"  he  added,  sadly.  "But  we  shall  banish  pain 
some  clay,  perhaps,  and  then — " 

"Then,  Mr.  Bentley,"  broke  in  Armisted,  "half 
the  joy  of  your  life  will  have  vanished  because 
your  occupation  will  be  half  gone.  And  the  poor 
then ---M^es  will  lose  all  sense  of  gratitude;  what 
an  unsatisfactory  state  of  things  that  would  be." 

"But  there  will  still  be  sorrow  and  sin,"  said  the 
little  clergyman  gently.  "My  work  will  remain 
with  me  till  I  die ;  it's  the  wisest  dispensation." 

"Well,  every  man  to  his  taste,  I  suppose,"  re 
turned  the  architect,  pulling  out  his  sketchbook 
and  dropping  to  his  knees  on  the  ground,  as  he 
ran  his  eye  along  the  surface  in  every  direction. 
"Just  at  present,  however,  we  must  fix  our  ener 
gies  on  the  forthcoming  hospital.  First  of  all  I 
want  to  find  an  old  man  who  lives  near  here.  T 
have  been  told  that  he  was  a  quarryman  in  his 
young  days  when  it  was  proposed  to  cut  down 
these  palisades  and  when  that  gross  indignity  to 
nature's  face  was  prevented  by  the  people.  I  want 

8? 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

his  opinion  as  to  the  character  of  the  ground  for 
the  excavation." 

"I  will  go,  too,  I  believe,"  said  Mrs.  Norton.  "I 
am  a  bit  tired  and  I'll  rest  while  you  are  talking." 

"And  I,  too,"  observed  Mr.  Bentley.  "I  am  not 
tired,  but  I  would  like  to  see  your  old  quarry- 
man."  The  good  man  would  not  confess  that  he 
went  with  the  thought  that  there  might  be  some 
form  of  trouble  in  the  quarryman's  house  that  he 
could  relieve. 

"Now,  Mr.  Craig,"  exclaimed  Helen,  as  she  sat 
down  on  the  soft  yellow  grass,  "we  are  all  alone 
in  the  world — or  rather  out  of  the  world ;  there  is 
the  actual  world,  that  immense  city  over  there. 
At  least,  my  father  says  so." 

"A  hard  and  relentless  thing  the  world  would  be 
if  that  were  all  of  it,  Miss  Norton.  Your  father 
meant  it  as  a  figure  of  speech." 

"A  speech  of  figures,  you  mean,"  returned  the 
girl  with  a  laugh.  "It's  money,  money,  money, 
over  there.  Why  don't  they  pave  the  sidewalks 
with  gold,  and  be  done  with  it?  Ah,  how  much 
better  this" — and  she  turned  and  pointed  to  the 
glowing  gifts  of  autumn  at  their  backs.  High  up 
on  a  rock  maple  was  a  shaft  of  crimson  that  caught 
her  eye  at  once. 

"What  exquisite  leaves !  Cannot  we  get  them  ? 
Let's  go  and  see." 

She  pouted  when  they  found  the  flaming  branch 
much  too  high  for  them  to  grasp. 

"Why  are  the  beautiful  things  always  out  of 
reach — in  nature,  I  mean?  Of  course  my  father's 
money — but  this  is  different.  You  don't  know, 
you  inconsiderate  maple,  that  I'm  the  daughter  of 

88 


ON  THE  PALISADES 

the  rich  John  Peter  Norton."  And  she  shook  her 
fist  in  mock  indignation  at  the  offending  tree. 

"We'll  have  that  branch,  Miss  Norton,"  said 
Craig,  gaily.  "I  haven't  much  money,  but  I  can 
climb." 

Up  the  trunk  Craig  swarmed  in  the  best  style 
of  his  school  days.  A  brief  tug  at  the  coveted 
branch,  and  the  deed  was  done;  yet  not  all  done, 
for  on  the  way  down  the  young  man's  coat  was 
caught  by  a  stout  twig  and  torn  royally.  He 
dropped  to  the  ground  and  ruefully  examined  the 
rent. 

Helen  laughed  at  his  serious  face,  and,  so  well 
attuned  were  their  two  natures  that  day,  he 
laughed  in  unison.  Then  the  girl  deftly  entwined 
a  little  chaplet  of  the  brilliant  leaves,  and  made  him 
stoop  while  she  placed  it  on  his  head. 

''The  reward  of  valor,  sir,"  she  exclaimed.  "He 
who  tears  his  coat  for  his  lady's  favor  is  a  brave 
man,  indeed.  Rise,  Sir  Philip,  and — no,  no,  I 
didn't  say  you  might  kiss  my  hand." 

"But  that  is  the  invariable  custom  when  one  is 
knighted,"  returned  the  young  man,  in  no  wise 
abashed.  The  wine  of  October  is  a  seductive 
potion,  and  Philip  Craig  was  drinking  deep  with 
each  indrawn  breath.  He  did  not  analyze  his  emo 
tions,  nor  would  he  have  cared  to ;  sufficient  for  his 
own  gladness  were  the  sky  and  color  and  the  near 
ness  of  a  naive  and  very  delightful  girl. 

"Oh,  well,  if  that's  part  of  the  ceremony,  never 
mind,"  she  replied  merrily.  "We  may  as  well  have 
our  sport  now,  for  when  October  comes  again  how 
different  it  will  be  just  here :  a  great  building  filled 
with  poor  little  things  with  withered  legs  and 
crooked  backs  and  aching  wounds.  I  can  see  the 

89 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

long  rows  of  tiny  white  cots  and  the  pretty  nurses. 
And,  oh,  the  smell  of  medicines,  and  the  operating 
room  with  its  dreadful  knives!  The  dear  babies. 
But  it's  all  to  cure  and  help  them,  isn't  it?  So  the 
picture  is  pleasant,  after  all." 

Her  old  vivacity  was  quick  to  return  as  they 
went  back  toward  the  road.  She  was  like  a  fawn 
to  which  bodily  repose  is  impossible  for  long. 

"I  dare  you  to  race  to  the  road,"  she  exclaimed, 
suddenly.  "Come  on!" 

Then  there  was  a  wild  and  laughing  dash,  into 
which  Craig  entered  with  so  much  abandon  that 
he  forgot  the  usual  rules  of  gallantry  and  actually 
beat  his  pretty  rival  by  a  yard.  But  she,  having 
reached  the  fence,  vaulted  lightly  over. 

"I  win/'  she  cried,  her  golden  hair  flying  about 
her  face  in  dainty  confusion.  "The  goal  was  this 
side  the  fence,  sir." 

Craig's  rising  protest  against  this  bit  of  feminine 
sharp  practice  was  stilled  by  the  sight  of  a  rap 
idly  approaching  road  wagon  drawn  by  a  hand 
some  cob.  The  driver  was  a  large,  florid,  over 
dressed  woman  whose  most  salient  points  seemed 
to  be  a  black,  befeathered  hat  of  enormous  propor 
tions,  a  pair  of  beady  black  eyes  and  earrings  of 
very  large  and  aggressive  diamonds.  She  stopped 
opposite  the  two  young  people  with  such  sudden 
ness  as  to  drag  her  steed  back  upon  his  hind  legs. 

"Ah,"  she  exclaimed  in  the  loud  and  metallic 
voice  one  would  expect  from  such  an  ensemble, 
"it  is  you,  Philip.  I  thought  I  couldn't  be  mis 
taken  in  a  face,  although  I  haven't  seen  you  since 
you  were  a  boy.  You  don't  remember  me,  I  sup 
pose." 

Craig  struggled  politely  to  reproduce  the 
90 


ON  THE  PALISADES 

woman's  face  in  the  chambers  of  his  mind,  but 
failed,  and  admitted  it. 

"Well,  I've  held  you  in  my  arms  many,  many 
times — when  he  was  a  baby,  miss.  If  you've  for 
gotten  me,  Philip,  I  don't  believe  you've  forgotten 
Geoffrey,  my  husband." 

"Mrs.  Fairbrother?" 

Craig's  voice  had  a  touch  of  surprise  that  was 
quite  involuntary.  This  loud,  too  gorgeous  crea 
ture  the  wife,  of  the  simple-minded  plain  old  fellow 
who  was  the  friend  of  his  Puritanical  father?  It 
seemed  an  anomaly  too  great  for  belief.  How 
ever,  she  had  said  it,  and  he  accepted  the  situation. 

"My  husband,"  said  Mrs.  Fairbrother,  with  a 
note  of  contempt  in  her  voice,  "wastes  more  time 
than  ever  at  Angus  Craig's  house  talking  a  lot  of 
rot  about  how  men  make  money.  If  he  saved  his 
breath  and  put  it  into  work,  he'd  have  less  reason 
to  prate  about  the  'inequality  that  money  makes.' 
If  I  talked  and  talked,  and  never  did  anything,  I'd 
be  as  poor  as  he,  but,  thanks  to  my  common  sense, 
I  know  how  to  pick  up  a  dollar  here  and  there. 
The  capitalists,  like  old  Dives,  don't  gobble  all  the 
crumbs,  and  if  Lazarus  is  sharp,  he  can  get  a  good 
many  of  'em." 

Rumor  credited  this  rather  remarkable  woman 
with  collecting  a  great  many  of  the  crumbs  and 
even  very  much  larger  pieces  of  the  banquet  of 
wealth.  She  was  a  shrewd  speculator  of  the  most 
catholic  sort;  nothing  that  held  forth  the  promise 
of  quick  profit  was  foreign  to  her.  Whether  it  was 
a  ship,  a  milk  route,  a  parcel  of  land,  a  block  of 
stock  or  an  abandoned  church  made  no  difference 
to  her  so  long  as  there  was  advantage  in  the  buy 
ing  and  selling.  She  and  the  nimble  dollar  danced 

91 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

merrily  together,  each  tireless  in  the  performance 
of  the  combined  duty  and  pleasure.  She  was  a  liv 
ing  contradiction  of  the  assumption  that  the  clever 
are  usually  silent,  for  she  had  all  the  volubility  of 
her  more  artless  husband.  Fluency  never  fails  the 
speech  of  those  whose  chief  topic  of  conversation 
is  themselves,  and  Mrs.  Fairbrother  launched 
forth  into  a  wordy  account  of  what  she  had  done 
that  day,  from  her  uprising  until  the  present 
moment. 

Craig  was  embarrassed,  Helen  half  amused,  by 
this  torrent  of  self-revelation.  He  tried  to  end  it 
by  various  conversational  devices,  but  it  was  like 
trying  to  stem  a  mountain  stream  with  a  dam  of 
bark.  On  it  swept  in  full  flow  of  intimate  ex 
posure. 

"I  .came  up  here  to  buy  some  lots  of  land  as  an 
investment,"  said  Mrs.  Fairbrother,  very  loudly. 
"I  had  looked  'em  over  a  year  ago,  but  like  a  fool 
I  thought  they  were  too  high  and  didn't  take  'em 
— felt  sure  they'd  go  lower,  you  know.  Now  I 
find  that  a  grasping  moneybags  named  Morton  or 
Norton  or  something  of  that  sort  has  bought  up 
the  whole  territory,  it  would  seem.  Not  a  smell 
left  for  an  honest  woman  who  wants  to  make  an 
honest  penny.  It's  enough  to  make  one  sick." 

Craig  imagined  that  Helen  had  flushed  ever  so 
slightly  at  this  aspersion  of  her  father  and  the  hos 
pital  scheme.  She  had  found  a  bit  of  grass  by 
the  roadside,  and,  true  to  her  instincts,  was  making- 
friends  with  the  cob,  which  whinnied  his  apprecia 
tion  and  allowed  her  to  kiss  his  velvety  muzzle, 
although  in  general  a  rather  ill-natured  beast. 
Craig  wondered  if  she  had  caught  the  woman's 

92 


ON  THE  PALISADES 

remarks,  and  what  she  would  do  if  they  became 
more  offensive,  as  they  very  likely  might. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Fairbrother,"  said  he,  pleasantly, 
"the  world  is  large,  and  I  take  it  there  are  plenty 
of  other  opportunities  to  buy  and  sell  land.  They 
tell  me  that  out  Montauk  Point  way — " 

"Montauk  Point?  Bah!  A  cold-blast  desert. 
But  here — oh,  if  I  could  only  get  at  him!"  she 
almost  screamed,  returning  to  the  charge  with 
more  vigor  than  before.  "I'd  just  give  him  a  piece 
of  my  mind.  To  come  along  and  buy  up  property 
with  his  millions  from  beneath  the  very  noses  of 
other  people  who  have  just  as  much  right  to  it  as 
he  has,  and  just  when  I  had  a  chance  to  clear  a 
cool  couple  of  thousand  by  selling  the  land  again ! 
But  this  Morton  or  Norton,  or  whatever  his  name 
is,  has  to  step  in  and  cheat  me  out  of  my  profit. 
The  impudent  moneybags!" 

Her  anger  rose  higher  and  higher  at  the  recital 
of  her  woes,  undoubtedly  embittered  by  the 
thought  that  her  own  lack  of  foresight  had  been 
her  undoing,  and  she  gave  her  horse  a  vicious  cut 
that  made  him  spring  forward  in  mute  indignation. 
With  a  nod  to  Craig  she  dashed  off  down  the  road 
in  a  great  cloud  of  dust. 

Helen  turned  toward  the  young  man  with 
amusement  and  wrath  contending  for  expression 
on  her  face.  But  her  good  sense  conquered. 

"Rather  a  decisive  person,  your  friend;  eh,  Mr. 
Craig?" 

"Spare  me,  Miss  Norton.  She's  no  friend  of 
mine,  I'll  swear.  Simply  because  her  husband- 
may  the  fates  preserve  him — is  a  crony  of  my 
father's  gives  her  no  credentials  from  me.  But 
wasn't  she — immense?" 

93 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

They  both  laughed  heartily  at  the  recollection 
of  the  outraged  feelings  of  the  big-voiced  woman, 
and  the  incident  was  closed.  Then  the  witchery  of 
the  sky  and  air  resumed  its  sway,  and  they  chatted 
gaily  of  the  many  trifles  that  youth  finds  in  plenty 
to  talk  about.  To  Craig,  at  least,  this  experience 
was  absolutely  new,  and  he  gave  himself  up  to  its 
delicious  mastery  as  a  novitiate  to  a  seductive 
drug.  Now  and  then  some  waking  self-conscious 
ness  would  ask  him  if  this  was  really  Philip  Craig, 
the  sober,  hard-working  man  of  business,  who  was 
talking  to  a  young  girl  as  if  there  were  nothing  in 
the  world  but  the  flame  and  spice  of  October. 
Helen  was  her  own  exuberant  self,  he  felt  sure, 
but  he?  He  pursued  his  self  analysis  no  further, 
but  let  himself  float  on  the  pleasant  tide  of  destiny. 
He  had  inherited  something  of  his  father's  belief  in 
foreordination,  and  when  fate  and  inclination  go 
hand  in  hand,  the  rest  is  easy. 

At  last  the  appearance  of  Mrs.  Norton  and  the 
others  warned  Craig  that  this  bright  day  was 
about  to  end.  The  mother  looked  keenly  at  her 
daughter's  radiant  face  and  at  the  no  less  joyous 
countenance  of  Philip.  If  she  read  anything  there, 
she  kept  her  counsel  for  a  long  time  afterwards. 

They  were  a  merry  party  as  they  dashed  down 
the  river  in  the  swift  Norton  launch,  stopping  only 
to  land  Armisted  and  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley  at  their 
destinations.  The  hospital  plans  took  more  defi 
nite  shape  during  this  ride  than  ever  before,  and 
Helen  went  home  happy  in  the  anticipation  of  tell 
ing  her  father  what  a  grand  success  the  new  insti 
tution  was  bound  to  be. 

But  Craig,  as  he  lay  awake  at  night  much  longer 
than  was  usual  to  his  well-regulated  life,  found  that 

94 


ON  THE  PALISADES 

the  thoughts  of  the  hospital  were  crowded  into 
oblivion  by  the  visions  of  tender,  blue  eyes,  sunny 
hair,  a  rippling  laugh  and  all  the  attributes  of 
charming  femininity  which  had  hitherto  been  to 
him  as  a  sealed  book.  Just  before  sleep  conquered 
him  he  drowsily  told  himself  what  a  lucky  fellow 
he  was  to  be  chosen  to  work  in  co-operation  with 
a  girl  whose  name  was  Helen. 


95 


CHAPTER    X. 

A    MAN    AND    HIS    CASTLE. 

VERY  early  in  his  career  as  John  Peter  Nor 
ton's  private  secretary,  Philip  Craig  decided 
that  his  title  and  his  duties  were  paradoxical. 
Indeed,  the  clerical  and  technical  work  as  assistant 
to  the  magnate  was  almost  entirely  handed  over  to 
a  middle  aged  stenographer  of  methodical  ways 
and  reliable  discretion.  Craig  himself  was  Nor 
ton's  confidential  agent  in  a  great  variety  of  affairs 
that  sent  him  out  into  the  world  and  brought  him 
in  touch  with  men  whose  mere  acquaintance  was 
of  extraordinary  value.  He  was  the  avant  courier 
of  every  new  scheme  of  the  millionaire,  and  he 
confessed  to  himself,  in  his  occasional  midnight 
introspections,  that  he  liked  this  latest  turn  of 
fortune's  wheel.  Nor  was  there  for  him  any  of 
that  deprecatory  feeling  common  to  mankind 
when  a  life  work  is  a  thing  of  delight;  he  would 
have  scorned  any  assumption  that  he  was  getting 
more  than  his  deserts,  for  he  knew  that  "John 
Peter"  was  one  who  never  tolerated  the  slightest 
sentiment  in  business  matters.  He  paid  for  no 
more  than  he  received,  and  Craig  was  certainly 
very  useful.  His  clear  head  and  unemotional  mind 
made  him  a  most  admirable  investigator  for  his 
busy  chief. 

"Examine  into  this  thing,  Philip,"  Norton  said 
one  day  during  the  first  summer,  when  Francois 

96 


A  MAN  AND  HIS  CASTLE 

Deschapelles,  an  inventor  with  an  almost  unintelli 
gibly  rapid  speech,  had  spent  a  fruitless  hour  in  the 
capitalist's  office  over  drawings  and  a  working 
model  which  he  carried  in  what  appeared  to  be  a 
cross  between  a  safe  and  a  Gladstone  bag.  "If  it 
is  what  he  says  it  is,  it  will  tear  a  big  hole  in  pres 
ent  commercial  methods.  You've  got  a  good  head 
for  getting  at  the  bottom  of  things.  If  you  recom 
mend  it,  I'll  go  into  the  thing  with  Deschapelles." 

Craig  went  over  to  a  little  cove  on  the  New 
Jersey  coast  that  had  been  entirely  surrounded  by 
a  high  wooden  fence.  There  he  saw  a  practical 
craft,  in  miniature,  whose  evolutions  amazed  and 
delighted  him.  Through  his  urgent  advice  Nor 
ton  obtained  control  of  the  patent. 

The  supervision  of  such  things  as  this,  together 
with  the  hospital  work,  kept  the  young  man  pretty 
actively  engaged,  and  yet  he  found  that  he  had 
more  spare  time  than  had  ever  before  fallen  to  him? 
When  winter  came  he  devoted  this  leisure  to  the 
improvement  of  the  aesthetic  side  of  his  nature. 
He  was  not  long  in  discovering  his  deficiencies  in 
the  fine  arts,  music  and  the  drama;  it  dawned  upon 
him  that  the  knowledge  of  the  printed  page  can 
never  make  the  rounded  man.  Sunshine  must 
come  to  grain  or  fruit  or  flower  as  well  as  the 
soberer  earth  and  rain,  and  intellectual  warmth 
was  what  he  had  always  lacked. 

Sometimes  his  actual  ignorance  of  the  more 
delicate  sides  of  education  was  a  source  of  great 
embarrassment  to  him,  as  once  when  he  casually 
remarked  to  Helen  Norton  that  he  had  not  seen 
the  great  actor,  Farrell. 

"Not  seen  Farrell?"  she  exclaimed.  "Why,  I 
thought  everybody  had  seen  him." 

97 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

It  had  pained  him  to  feel  outside  the  pale  even 
of  this  rather  unsophisticated  girl's  experience,  and 
his  face  revealed  the  fact. 

"Pardon  me,"  she  said  quickly.  "I  had  for 
gotten  that  father  told  us  you  have  been  a  hard 
student,  and  have  had  no  opportunity  for  such 
frivolities." 

But  "frivolities"  or  not,  he  found  himself,  some 
what  to  his  own  surprise,  in  a  stall  that  very  night 
at  the  State  Theatre,  one  of  the  three  in  the 
metropolis  subsidized  by  the  government.  After 
that  he  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  best  play 
houses,  a  Shakespearian  cycle  at  the  Comus  par 
ticularly  attracting  him,  with  its  bi-weekly  presen 
tation  of  some  great  comedy  or  tragedy. 

For  music,  too,  he  developed  an  unexpected 
taste  and  liking.  Nor  was  he,  as  one  might  have 
thought,  an  adherent  of  the  somewhat  antiquated 
and  quiet  methods  of  \Yagner,  Tschaikowsky  and 
Richard  Strauss.  On  the  contrary,  he  accepted  at 
once  the  ''new  tonality,"  as  it  was  called,  and  what 
some  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  ancient  regime  were 
pleased  to  term  "barbaric  and  brutal  noise,"  was 
to  him  a  delight  to  the  ear  and  the  senses.  He 
read  much  in  musical  history  and  was  amused  and 
surprised  to  find  almost  the  exact  words  applied 
to  Beethoven,  Berlioz,  Schuman  and  Wagner  by 
the  classicists  of  their  day.  He  found  that  all  new 
art  is  "caviar  to  the  general"  and  that  the  hooted 
of  to-day  is  the  adored  of  to-morrow. 

One  Sunday  night  in  February  when  he  had 
planned  to  go  to  the  first  performance  of  a  new 
religious  opera,  the  hunting  up  of  the  text  in  the 
little  Bible  of  his  boyhood  suddenly  brought  be 
fore  him  the  face  of  his  father,  and  he  thought  with 

98 


A  MAN  AND  HIS  CASTLE 

a  pang  of  self-reproach  how  little  he  had  seen  of 
him  during  the  winter.  Although  never  made  to 
feel  very  welcome  in  the  cottage,  he  determined 
to-night  to  forego  the  music  and  try,  at  least,  to 
enact  the  part  of  a  dutiful  son. 

It  was  bitter  weather  as  he  came  out  of  the  great 
apartment  house  where  he  lived.  A  howling  wind 
tore  around  the  gulfs  between  the  tall  buildings, 
dashing  a  needle-like  sleet  in  the  faces  of  those  who 
ventured  to  battle  with  the  blast.  The  pavements 
and  streets  themselves  were,  of  course,  clear, 
thanks  to  the  great  network  of  steam-pipes  that  lay 
near  the  whole  surface  of  the  city;  further  out, 
however,  Philip  met  a  thick,  wet  covering  of  snow 
as  he  stepped  from  his  car,  and  he  slipped  and 
stumbled  as  he  went,  quite  unused  to  this  sort  of 
walking. 

As  he  approached  his  father's  house  he  was 
surprised  to  see  that  many  of  the  gaunt  buildings 
around  it  had  either  been  razed  or  were  in  process 
of  destruction.  The  desolation  of  the  scene  was 
complete.  Not  a  human  being  beside  himself  was 
stirring  on  the  deserted  street;  the  tiny  cottage, 
standing  there  in  the  midst  of  the  ruin,  buffeted  by 
the  storm  and  ghostly  white  with  snow,  only 
accentuated  the  dreariness  of  the  picture.  Philip's 
throat  tightened  as  he  thought  of  the  saddened 
man  who  dwelt  in  that  region  and  in  that  house  all 
alone.  He  noticed  that  the  only  light  in  the  cot 
tage  was  a  feeble  gleam,  now  and  then  effaced  by 
the  fierce  waves  of  snow,  in  the  second  story.  He 
feared  his  father  might  be  ill. 

SilentH  he  made  his  way  upstairs  and  to  the  now 
well-remembered  room  that  had  been  his  mother's. 
The  sound  of  Angus'  voice,  like  the  monotone  of 

99 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  litany,  hushed  the  greeting  that  rose  to  his  lips. 
What  he  saw  made  him  shudder,  despite  his  good 
blood  and  nerves. 

By  the  dim  light  of  a  candle,  the  old  man  was 
talking  to  something  in  the  chair  that  had  been 
the  favorite  of  his  dead  wife.  To  that  and  to  other 
articles  associated  with  her  he  was  pourine  forth 
a  pitiful  plaint  about  his  broken  home  and  the 
threat  to  tear  it  from  its  foundation  stones. 

"An'  they  say  we  must  go  out  into  the  warrld, 
you  an'  me,  an'  again  seek  a  bidin'  place.  Oh,  the 
cruelty  of  the  reech,  the  flinty  hearts  that  wad 
drive  us  aboot  from  hearth-stane  to  hearth-stane 
till  we  dee.  We'll  gang,  if  so  be  'tis  written,  my 
ain  dear  heart,  but  till  then  we'll  fight;  aye,  fight — 
fight !" 

His  voice  rose  into  a  wild  scream  of  defiance, 
from  which  the  shrill  yell  of  the  wind  was  scarcely 
to  be  distinguished.  Philip  could  stand  no  more. 

"Father,"  he  called  very  gently.  His  voice  had 
a  tenderness  born  of  sudden  remorse  and  pity;  it 
was  like  the  voice  of  a  woman. 

"Eh,  what?"  said  Angus,  casting  his  glance 
about  with  a  sudden  exaltation.  The  light  of  a 
great  joy  shone  on  his  thin  face.  "Eh?" 

"Father,"  said  Philip  once  more,  louder,  but  as 
full  of  kindness.  This  time  he  was  heard  distinctly. 

"Ah.  .  .  .  It's  you  yersel',  Mary,  come  back  to 
the  lonely  mon  in  his  darrk  hour.  'Father!' 
That's  what  ye  used  tae  ca'  me  after  bairnie  Philip 
cam'  tae  us.  Ye  pity  me  to-night,  dearie,  I  ken,  an' 
so  ye  speak  tae  gi'  me  strength  tae  bear  the  burden 
we  a'  must  tak'  up,  some  time.  Aye,  lass,  we'll 
bear  them  thegither,  now  that  ye  have  come  tae 
Angus.  God  bless  ye  for't,  God  bless  ye." 

100 


A  MAN  AND  HIS  CASTLE 

Tears  streamed  down  his  seamed  cheeks  as  he 
fell  on  his  knees  before  the  chair  and  grasped  its 
inanimate  arms  with  his  trembling  hands.  Philip 
could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  interrupt  such  a 
communing  with  the  spirit  of  the  dead  past;  he 
felt  that  it  would  be  like  the  profanation  of  a 
prayer,  and  he  went  quietly  down  the  stairs  and 
out  into  the  furious  night,  where  he  halted  like  a 
sentinel  before  the  cottage,  that  he  might  know  by 
the  light  when  his  father  should  come  down.  As 
he  stood  there  a  defect  in  his  own  nature  was  sud 
denly  revealed  to  him.  Might  he  not,  like  Angus, 
be  possessed  of  a  surface  coldness  that  belied  the 
warm  depths  within  ?  Had  he  not  been  unappre- 
ciative  of  that  very  father's  benefits  toward  him? 
After  all,  it  was  the  curt  command,  "Shift  for 
yersel'  "  that  was  the  foundation  stone  of  his  pres 
ent  fair  fabric  in  life.  A  new  affection  arose  for  the 
lonely  man  he  had  just  seen  laying  bare  the  inmost 
recesses  of  a  loving  soul.  He  would  make  amends, 
he  thought,  not  only  hereafter,  but  now,  in  this 
stormy  night  so  aptly  typifying  the  surges  of 
emotion  within  that  tiny  dwelling. 

After  a  little  he  saw  the  flicker  of  light  fade  away 
from  the  front  windows,  and  he  knew  that  his 
father  was  coming  down  stairs.  He  went  inside  to 
the  sitting  room,  and  was  there  when  the  older 
man  appeared. 

A  great  and  inevitable  reaction  from  his  tender 
exaltation  had  set  in  for  Angus.  He  even  felt 
ashamed  of  his  passionate  outburst,  and  he  was 
pettishly  suspicious  of  the  son's  presence  in  the 
house,  and  resented  it  as  an  intrusion. 

"How  long  hae  ye  been  in  this  room?"  he 
asked,  sharply. 

101 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"I  just  came  in,  as  you  see,"  said  Philip,  pointing 
to  the  snow  on  his  shoulders. 

"Weel,  ye  don't  come  so  muckle  often  that  ye 
need  come  oot  such  a  nicht  as  this." 

An  inauspicious  beginning,  surely,  for  the  inter 
change  of  olive  branches.  But  the  son's  resolution 
was  firm  against  the  well-remembered  crabbed- 
ness. 

"Well,  father,  I  know  that,"  he  returned,  "but 
to-night  somehow  I — well,  I  want  to  say  to  you 
that  I  feel  I  haven't  always  been  the  dutiful  son  I 
might  have  been.  You — you  understand?" 

"Dutiful?  Dinna  ye  worrit  aboot  that.  Ye 
were  dutiful  enow  tae  tak'  the  hint  I  gaed  ye  that 
gin  ye  took  up  wi'  a  plutocrat,  ye'er  room  was 
better  than  ye'er  coompany." 

"Well,  father,  I—" 

"We'll  not  haggle  over  it.  The  warrld's  wider 
than  life  is  lang,  fortunately.  Gang  ye'er  ain  way. 
It's  weel  ye  cam'  tonicht,  however,  if  ye  wanted  tae 
see  the  auld  place  as  it  is;  they  threaten  they'll 
tear  it  doon  aboot  my  ears." 

"They?    Who?" 

"The  vultures  who'll  have  nae  nest  but  this. 
The  sharks  o'  capital,  who  wad  swallow  a  home 
into  their  damned  maws.  The  greedy  priests  o' 
Mammon,  who  wad  offer  up  ilka  honest  heart  on 
their  sacrileegious  altars.  Mon,  Philip,  I  say  tae 
ye  that— 

"But  who  are  they,  father?"  broke  in  the  young 
man.  He  was  becoming  rather  impatient  of  this 
seriatim  invective.  If  his  father  really  had  a  griev 
ance,  he  wanted  the  facts  instead  of  rhetoric. 
"Who  are  they,  and  what  do  they  say?" 

Then  Angus  told  him  of  the  new  threat  he  had 
1 02 


A  MAN  AND  HIS  CASTLE 

received ;  how  written  notice  had  been  sent  him  to 
the  effect  that  if  he  did  not  sell  out  to  the  promot 
ers  of  the  new  manufactory  at  his  own  price,  he 
would  be  forced  to  leave  by  legal  means. 

"It  can't  be  done,  father,"  exclaimed  Philip, 
warmly,  "there's  no  warrant  whatever  for  such 
proceeding." 

"Sae  I  thoucht,  but  there  was  summat  in  the 
paper  aboot  the  terms  of  an  auld  lease  back  o'  my 
title  by  which  I  could  be  deespossessed.  I  dinna 
ken." 

"Let  me  see  the  notice." 

Angus  fumbled  in  the  pocket  of  his  black  coat 
for  a  moment,  in  vain. 

"Aye,  to  be  sure,"  he  said,  with  almost  a  smile  at 
his  own  forgetfulness,  "I  gave  it  tae  Geoffrey  last 
nicht." 

"To  Fairbrother?" 

"Yes;  he  has  a  friend,  ane  of  those  lawyer 
bodies,  and  he's  gaen  tae  him  to-day  tae  ask  aboot 
it.  But  I  dinna  think  he'll  try  tae  get  here  in  this 
storm." 

"'How  long  did  they  give  you?"  pursued  the 
son,  now  thoroughly  interested  in  the  case. 
There  must  be  some  tremendous  influence  back  of 
the  attempt  to  oust  his  father,  he  thought.  He 
wondered  if  he  could  not  enlist  Norton's  help 
against  the  promoters ;  then  he  knew  that  the  case 
was  hopeless,  for  Angus'  life  could  be  made  unen 
durable  in  the  cottage,  even  should  he  be  able  to 
maintain  his  position  there.  He  pitied  the  old 
man's  distress,  though  he  could  not  enter  into  it; 
for  him  the  place  was  no  treasure  house  of  pleasant 
memories. 


103 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

''How  long  did  they  give  you?"  he  asked, 
kindly. 

"Twa  months,  or  sae." 

"Oh,  then,  it  isn't  so  bad.  You'll  have  time  to 
look  about  and  get  a  good  location  with  the  money 
you  receive." 

Angus  Craig's  meagre  frame  stiffened  with 
anger,  and  he  passed  a  hand  through  his  shock  of 
hair  with  a  swift  movement  of  irascibility.  That 
his  own  flesh  and  blood  should  so  fail  to  compre 
hend  him  was  as  embittering,  almost,  as  the  on 
slaught  against  his  home. 

"Look  aboot?"  he  shouted.  "Gude  location? 
Money?  An'  ye  think  I'd  sell,  do  ye?  Then  it's 
mickle  ye  ken  of  ye'er  ain  faither.  No,  I'll  not 
sell.  If  I  gang,  they'll  have  tae  drag  me  oot.  I'll 
shoot  the  first  mon  who  dares  cross  my  threshold 
when  I  forbid.  Ilka  mon's  house  is  his  castle,  they 
used  tae  say  years  agane.  I'll  show  'em  it's  ower 
true  the  day.  I'll — " 

The  dashing  jingle  of  sleigh  bells,  subsiding  into 
a  fugitive  tinkle  as  their  wearer  stopped  in  front  of 
the  cottage,  interrupted  the  fiery  flow  of  Angus' 
tirade.  A  moment  later  the  burly  figure  of  Geof 
frey  Fairbrother  plunged  into  the  room,  his  round 
face  aglow  with  travel  and  excitement.  From 
without  came  the  coarse,  strident  voice  of  a 
woman. 

"Hurry  now,  Geoffrey;  this  horse  is  worth 
money  and  he  can't  stand  out  here  in  the  cold." 

Angus  grasped  his  visitor  by  the  hand  and 
fairly  dragged  him  to  a  chair  by  the  lamp  on  the 
table.  There  Geoffrey  attempted  to  explain  the 
presence  of  his  wife,  whom  he  had  met  driving 
home  and  who  generously  offered  to  take  him  to 

104 


A  MAN  AND  HIS  CASTLE 

his  destination,  but  he  was  cut  short  by  the 
anxious  Scotchman. 

"What  did  the  lawyer  mon  say,  Geoff?  Must  I 
gang?" 

Fairbrother  waved  a  paper  in  the  air  as  if  it  had 
been  a  triumphant  banner. 

"Here  ye  are,"  he  exclaimed,  jubilantly.  "He 
wrote  it  down  on  the  bottom  of  your  paper  of 
eviction." 

Craig  seized  the  sheet  with  nervous  energy  and 
held  it  close  to  his  eyes.  But  his  spectacles  were 
missing,  and  he  could  make  nothing  of  the  writ 
ing.  He  thrust  the  paper  back  into  Fairbrother's 
hands. 

"Read  it,  mon,"  he  commanded.  "Don't  stand 
there  gaping  like  a  fu'  moon.  For  God's  sake 
read  it!" 

"He's  as  good  a  lawyer  as  there  is,"  prefaced 
Geoffrey  for  the  benefit  of  Philip. 

"Read,  mon,  read." 

Then  Fairbrother  began,  in  slow,  ponderous 
fashion,  prolonging  the  words  and  making  little 
pauses  between  sentences  to  heighten  the  effect  of 
his  delivery.  Thus  ran  the  opinion : 

"  'This  notice  is  bravado.  If  Craig  does  not 
choose  to  sell,  he  need  not.  Real  estate  cannot  be 
seized  by  private  parties  under  any  pretext  what 
ever  of  public  good.  Only  the  state  can  do  so 
under  the  right  of  eminent  domain.  Craig's  title  I 
have  had  looked  up,  and  it  is  perfectly  sound. 
(Signed)  Nathaniel  Wentworth !' ' 

No  courier  bringing  news  of  victory  to  his 
general  could  ever  have  effected  a  greater  change 
in  a  man  than  that  which  came  upon  Angus  Craig 
at  his  friend's  report.  He  arose  from  his  chair  to 

105 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

his  full  height,  and  there  was  a  something  in  his 
face  that  seemed  almost  supernatural  in  its  light 
of  joy.  He  took  the  paper  from  Geoffrey,  folded 
it  reverentially  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  Philip's 
expressed  desire  to  see  it  met  with  a  cold  denial; 
the  document  was  too  precious  for  any  other 
scrutiny,  and  since  he  had  won,  what  need  of  fur 
ther  examination?  He  buttoned  his  coat  tightly 
about  him  and  strode  to  the  window.  He  stood 
there  for  a  moment,  as  if  in  defiance  of  all  the  ele 
ments  of  evil,  seen  and  unseen,  that  were  outside 
his  home. 

"Noo  let  them  come  on,"  he  said,  with  a  ring  of 
exultation  the  son  had  never  heard  in  his  voice 
before,  "we're  ready,  the  cot  and  me.  They 
thoucht  tae  bully  Angus  Craig,  did  they?  Fools, 
fools  a',  blinded  by  the  greed  o'  gowd !" 


106 


CHAPTER  XL 

ON  THE  SEA  LION. 

ON  a  brilliant  afternoon  in  waning  May  the 
passengers  of  a  monster  incoming  ocean 
liner  were  filled  with  curiosity  at  the  gala 
appearance  of  New  York  Harbor.     A  flotilla  of 
elaborately    decorated    steam    yachts,    excursion 
boats  and  sailing  craft  was  making  its  way  toward 
the  outer  side  of  Staten  Island,   the  tooting  of 
whistles  and  the  screaming  of  sirens  adding  to  the 
noisily  festive  flavor  of  the  day. 

Immense  barges,  filled  with  exuberant  children, 
were  proceeding  in  stately  array,  each  enlivened  by 
the  strains  of  a  brass  band,  whose  music  threat 
ened  to  be  extinguished  altogether  by  the  snorting 
and  puffing  of  the  tugs  that  provided  motive 
power.  Behind  these  was  a  fleet  of  rowboats 
whose  occupants  were  all  pulling  as  lustily  as  if 
some  great  prize  were  to  be  the  reward  of  their 
exertions. 

The  liner's  people  hailed  a  passing  tugboat  to 
get  information.  "What's  up  to-day?"  shouted 
some  one  through  a  megaphone  to  a  grimy  fellow 
who  had  just  emerged  from  the  engine-room  of 
the  little  steamer.  "What's  all  the  excitement? 
Is  this  a  holiday?" 

A  look  of  contemptuous  pity  filled  the  streaked 
face  of  the  tugman.  "Holiday?  Naw!  It's  Nor 
ton's  shindy.  Didn't  yer  know  that?" 

107 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Had  the  passengers  been  supplied  with  the  daily 
papers,  they  would  have  been  well  prepared  for 
the  prodigality  of  flags  and  music  and  noise.  For 
days  the  city  journals  had  been  swelling  with 
''exclusive"  accounts  of  the  mysterious  something 
that  had  been  building  in  the  Staten  Island  yards 
for  months.  But  spite  of  columns  of  conjecture 
and  a  vast  number  of  excellent  photographs  of  the 
exterior  of  the  yard,  not  much  in  the  way  of  facts 
had  been  given  the  public.  It  was  known  that 
three  gangs  of  men  had  been  working  day  and 
night  on  the  strange  machine  which  John  Peter 
Norton  had  been  heard  to  say  would  revolutionize 
the  commerce  of  the  world ;  that  the  same  financier 
was  backing  the  scheme  and  that  the  inventor  was 
one  Francois  Deschapelles,  a  Frenchman.  Beyond 
that  even  the  most  astute  journalists  were  all  at 
sea. 

Strict  military  discipline  had  prevailed  at  the 
mystic  enclosure.  Cordons  of  guards  perpetually 
surrounded  the  place,  and  no  one  was  admitted 
save  the  workmen,  who  lived  in  a  species  of  bar 
racks  within  a  high  stockade.  In  general  they 
were  a  faithful  lot,  and  kept  sealed  lips;  the  few 
who  were  occasionally  overhauled  in  their  cups  by 
the  "sleuthhounds  of  the  press"  had  little  to  tell, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  each  gang  worked  only  on 
a  small  section  of  the  craft,  which  was  divided  by 
closely  fitting  walls  into  a  dozen  impenetrable 
parts. 

Some  of  the  newspapers,  despairing  of  getting 
any  authentic  information  about  the  machine  that 
was  being  built  by  the  Norton  millions,  hired 
learned  and  verbose  scientific  men  to  write  treat 
ises  upon  its  probable  character  and  its  chances 

1 08 


OAr  THE  SEA  LION 

of  success.  The  savants  varied  greatly  in  their 
guesses.  One  affirmed  that  the  affair  must  be  an 
aerial  car  on  the  aeroplane  principle ;  another  that 
it  was  a  steel  railroad  train  of  tubular  shape  in 
tended  to  run  on  ball-bearings  in  a  semi-circular 
groove  and  propelled  by  thermo-electrical  power. 
This  writer  proceeded  to  argue  most  convincingly 
that  the  speed  developed  would  be  so  great  that 
human  life  could  not  be  sustained,  consequently 
the  train  must  be  intended  solely  for  the  transpor 
tation  of  merchandise,  and  its  machinery  would 
be  so  constructed  as  to  require  no  attention  after 
it  had  been  set  in  motion.  Violent  quarrels  arose 
among  the  scientific  gentlemen,  and  the  brochures 
published  during  that  memorable  spring  were  long 
held  in  high  esteem. 

Nor  did  "John  Peter's"  invitations,  issued  per 
sonally  to  a  few  selected  guests  and,  through  the 
newspapers,  to  the  great  public  of  New  York, 
throw  much  light  on  the  matter.  They  contained 
a  simple  announcement  that  on  the  twenty-first  of 
May,  at  3.30  p.  m.,  would  occur  the  "first  public 
trial  of  M.  Francois  Deschapelles'  new  merchan 
dise  transportation  machine."  Norton  himself  had 
furnished  the  hundreds  of  decorated  steamers  and 
barges  for  the  free  use  of  such  of  the  populace  as 
cared  to  become  his  guests.  Thousands  accepted, 
as  a  matter  of  course. 

The  financier's  personal  party  was  small  enough 
to  be  comfortably  accommodated  on  his  splendid 
steam  yacht,  the  Sea  Lion.  He  smiled  as  he  re 
flected  that  only  a  year  ago  that  marvelous  exem 
plar  of  aquatic  luxury  had  been  the  wonder  of  an 
hour,  its  supreme  beauty  of  form  praised  by  poets 
and  pictured  by  artists,  and  its  regal  splendor  of 

109 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

fittings  held  up  as  a  model  by  decorators  all  over 
the  world.  Now  another  marvel  was  filling  the 
popular  mind,  and  the  Sea  Lion  was,  as  it  were,  a 
servant  to  the  new  sensation. 

On  the  shaded  decks  of  the  yacht  was  one  of 
Norton's  favorite  assemblages.  "I  like  variety  in 
people,  as  well  as  in  food,"  he  was  wont  to  say, 
"and  I  believe  it  is  rather  more  necessary." 

Certainly  his  guests  of  to-day  were  sharply  indi 
vidualized.  Beside  Mrs.  Norton,  Helen,  Craig  and 
the  inevitable  Haven,  were  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley, 
childishly  happy  in  his  day's  outing;  Biddle  Jaff- 
rey,  the  shipping  magnate;  Stuyvesant  Lord,  the 
great  railroad  man,  the  hairs  of  whose  head  could 
now  be  numbered  by  a  child;  Ward  Neilson,  the 
disc  millionaire,  handsome  as  an  Apollo,  and 
markedly  solicitous  of  Helen  Norton's  comfort ; 
Herbert  Fish  Wilson,  the  dry-goods  potentate, 
and  a  score  of  others  who  had  figured  in  the 
"Handicap"  dinner,  and  were  by  this  time  quite 
willing  to  be  known  as  "John  Peter's"  friends. 
And,  most  observed  of  all,  the  short,  solid  figure, 
the  flaxen  moustachios  and  the  blue  eyes  of  Count 
Sandstrom.  His  presence  occasioned  some  sur 
prise,  for  few  knew  he  was  in  the  country. 

"Well,  ef  there  ain't  Sandstrom,"  exclaimed 
Lord,  with  his  inexplicable  pretense  of  illiteracy. 
"Didn't  know  the  cuss  was  'round.  Wouldn't 
expect  to  have  seen  him  here,  anyway.  What's  in 
the  wind,  I  wonder?" 

"Nothing  much,"  replied  Jaffrey,  who  was  sit 
ting  near,  "except  that  Sandstrom  and  Norton 
have  been  on  very  good  terms  ever  since  that  ban 
quet,  and  that  his  noble  lordship  came  over  on 


no 


ON  THE  SEA  LION 

purpose  to  see  this  festivity.  I  understand  that 
Norton  has  let  him  in  on  several  good  things." 

"H'm,"  growled  the  other,  "my  advice  to  John 
Peter'd  be  to  play  pretty  darn  foxy  with  that  feller. 
He's  a  deep  customer,  and  I  hear  he  means  to  be 
the  money  boss  of  Europe  as  his  dad  was  before 
him." 

"I  don't  think  we  need  worry  about  Norton," 
returned  Jaffrey,  quietly,  with  a  rather  contemptu 
ous  glance  at  the  ornamental  foreigner.  .  .  . 
"Hullo,  Price." 

The  salutation  was  for  a  large  man  whose  plente 
ous  flesh  seemed  illy  attached  to  his  frame,  so 
exceedingly  did  it  shake  when  he  walked.  His 
heavy  jowls  always  appeared  to  be  on  the  point  of 
injury  from  his  high  collar,  and  the  stubby  black 
mustache  he  affected  did  little  to  conceal  a  thick 
and  sensual  mouth.  The  light  of  great  energy  and 
shrewdness,  however,  shone  from  his  handsome 
brown  eyes,  and  his  forehead  would  have  de 
lighted  a  phrenologist  by  its  nobility  and  symme 
try.  "Below  his  nose  Price  is  a  satyr,"  someone 
had  once  said ;  "above,  a  Newton."  This  dividing- 
line  was  also  present  in  his  conduct  of  life ;  he  could 
do  incredibly  mean  things,  and  he  could  also  per 
form  acts  of  real  self-sacrifice  and  honor. 

Such  was  Orville  W.  Price,  the  most  famous  and 
successful  editor  in  America,  and  the  proprietor 
of  the  "American  News,"  a  paper  published  in 
twenty-two  cities  every  morning  and  evening  in 
the  year.  "A  paper  for  the  people"  was  its  motto 
and  subhead,  printed  so  large  that  the  most  casual 
runner  could  but  read.  Its  circulation  reached 
into  the  millions  and  its  influence  with  the  masses 
was  more  potent  than  that  of  the  church  itself. 

in 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

He  was  proud  of  his  paper,  proud  of  himself  and 
proud  of  his  editorial  page,  which  he  declared  was 
worth  more  to  any  given  project  than  all  the  ora 
tors  the  country  could  boast. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley,  whose  plans  had  often 
been  materially  assisted  by  Price's  paper,  spied  the 
editor  from  afar  and  came  trotting  up  to  the 
group,  which  Norton,  Haven  and  Craig  had  also 
joined,  kindness  exuding  from  every  moral  pore. 

"A  delightful  occasion,  Mr.  Price,  I  am  sure; 
and  one  that  means  so  much  for  humanity,"  he 
said. 

"I  fear  I  do  not  quite  follow  you,  Mr.  Bentley," 
returned  the  editor,  pompously. 

"Why,  sir,  if  this  new  ship  does  what  Descha- 
pelles  claims  for  it,  will  it  not  be  a  great  public 
blessing?" 

"Ahem.  Possibly."  He  paused  as  if  deliberat 
ing  some  great  question  of  state.  "Possibly." 

The  little  clergyman  mildly  insisted  on  his  point. 
He  was  no  weakling,  even  in  the  presence  of  so 
great  a  man  as  Price. 

"But  will  it  not,  by  reducing  time  and  cost  of 
transportation,  cheapen  all  articles  used  by  the 
poor?" 

"Possibly — ahem.  You  know,  Mr.  Bentley, 
that  invention,  the  child  of  necessity,  often  has  a 
progeny  that  takes  back  to  the  grandmother.  I— 
and  when  I  say  T  you  realize,  of  course,  that  I 
mean  the  News, — I  cannot,  I  say — ahem — cannot 
endorse  anything  that  threatens  the  interests  of  the 
workingman,  the — ahem — the  reduction  of  the 
working  force,  the — in  short,  the  sacrifice  of  the 
individual  to  the  good  of  the  majority.  My  paper, 
you  know,  is  with,  of  and  for  the  people." 

112 


ON  THE  SEA  LION 

"And  for  the  people's  cents,  eh,  Mr.  Price?" 
observed  Norton,  quizzically. 

"Yes,  sir,"  returned  the  editor,  in  no  wise  dis 
concerted,  "an  engine  of  progress  must  be,  so  to 
speak,  fed,  nourished  by  the  mites  of  the  public, 
given  in  exchange  for  instruction  and  counsel 
combined  judiciously  with  the  presentation  of  the 
topics  of  the  day." 

"He  certainly  looks  well  nourished,"  observed 
Haven  in  a  loud  aside  to  Craig,  who  was  listening 
to  this  discussion  with  an  interest  he  himself 
scarcely  realized.  This  was  his  first  view  of  the 
celebrated  newspaper  owner,  and  he  determined  to 
study  him  carefully  to  find  out,  if  he  could,  the 
sources  of  his  immense  power. 

"Now  if  this  Frenchman,  this — ahem — Des- 
chapelles,  could  present  any  valid  argument  to 
show  that  his  invention  is  for  the  benefit  of  the 
individual,  I  would  be  pleased  to  hear  it.  I  would 
allow  him  space  in  the  News,  and  he  would  be 
granted  the  privilege,  I  may  say,  of  affixing  his 
signature  to  his  article.  The  News,  sir,  aims  to  be 
fair  in  every  controversy." 

"You're  very  kind,  Price,"  said  John  Norton, 
drily.  "I  think  I  see  M.  Deschapelles  coming  this 
way  now ;  we'll  let  him  speak  for  himself." 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    LAUNCHING. 

M  FRANCOIS  DESCHAPELLES  dif 
fered  from  the  majority  of  inventors  in 
that  he  was  not  a  self-assertive  man.  The 
spark  of  genius  that  undoubtedly  lay  within  him 
never  blazed  up  into  visible  pyrotechnics ;  in  fact, 
he  was  timid  to  a  degree,  and  had  a  habit  of 
shrinking  from  any  unpleasantly  decisive  word 
as  from  a  blow.  There  were  no  graces  in  his 
tall,  lean  body,  while  his  sallow  face,  thin  wisps  of 
dark  hair  over  the  lips,  beak-like  nose  surmounted 
by  heavy  gold  spectacles,  and  high  forehead  en 
circled  with  queer  little  curls,  formed  an  ensemble 
that  the  deceived  onlooker  generally  mistook  for 
the  face  of  avarice.  Nothing  could  have  been 
further  from  the  truth,  for  Deschapelles,  to  do  him 
justice,  cared  only  for  the  success  of  his  invention, 
and  not  at  all,  at  this  time,  for  the  money  that 
might  accrue  therefrom. 

The  Frenchman  was  excessively  nervous  and 
excitable,  and  irritatingly  voluble  when  once  he 
had  begun  to  talk.  This  was  not  loquacity,  but  the 
result  of  a  dread  lest  his  voice  should  run  down, 
as  it  were,  before  it  had  fulfilled  its  task.  How  he 
had  ever  succeeded  in  impressing  the  value  of  his 
machine  upon  Norton  was  a  mystery  to  those  who 
did  not  know  of  the  infinite  tact  and  patience  of 
Philip  Craig  in  getting  the  truth  from  a  tornado  of 

114 


THE  LAUNCHING 

words.  The  secretary  had  even  compelled  the 
inventor  to  write  in  French  a  succinct  and  compre 
hensible  treatise  on  his  achievement.  Deschapelles 
had  sense  enough  to  know  that  to  Craig  was  due 
the  whole  fact  of  to-day's  launching,  and  he  was 
grateful  in  a  tempestuous  fashion  that  irritated 
rather  than  pleased  the  young  man. 

For  some  time,  as  the  Sea  Lion  proceeded 
toward  the  yard  where  to  him  was  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  the  well-spring  of  life  itself,  Deschapelles 
had  been  pacing  the  deck  in  actual  agony.  The 
possibility — he  was  inclined  to  say  the  probability 
— of  failure  had  made  of  him  a  moral  coward.  He 
had  no  valid  reasons  for  his  fears,  for  his  working 
models  had  been  eminently  successful;  yet  now 
that  the  supreme  test  had  come,  now  that  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  civilized  world  were  fixed  on  the  crea 
ture  of  his  brain,  he  was  afraid  to  stand  the  issue. 

His  very  presence  on  the  yacht  at  this  moment, 
instead  of  at  the  yard,  was  the  result  of  this  gloomy 
foreboding.  In  fact,  he  had  been  abjectly  running 
away  from  the  trial  when  Norton,  on  his  way  to 
embark,  had  seen  him  rushing  for  an  up-river 
steamer,  and  had  dragged  him  back  to  duty  by 
main  force.  Disgusted  by  such  a  pusillanimous 
exhibition,  the  capitalist  had  not  spoken  to  him 
during  the  entire  trip.  Now,  as  the  inventor 
approached  the  group  of  his  friends,  he  looked  at 
him  with  a  species  of  wonderment  that  such  men 
could  actually  exist. 

"Well,  Deschapelles,"  he  said,  as  kindly  as  he 
could,  after  a  sweeping  introduction  to  the  party 
had  been  made,  "have  you  mustered  up  pluck 
enough  to  face  the  music  of  your  own  making?" 

The  inventor  shifted  uneasily  from  one  foot  to 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

another  and  spasmodically  twisted  his  puny  mus 
tache.  He  looked  piteously  from  face  to  face  as  if 
in  search  of  moral  support. 

"Je  ne  sais  pas,"  he  stammered  at  length.  "I  do 
not — I  cannot — oh,  mon  Diet 

Norton's  thin  lips  set  in  a  straight  line,  and  his 
eyes  dilated.  He  forgot  entirely  the  presence  of 
his  guests. 

"You  infernal  coward,"  he  exclaimed,  "at  tne 
very  brink  of  success  you  show  the  white  feather !" 

The  Frenchman  started  back  as  if  struck  by  a 
lash. 

"Ah,  Monsieur  Norton  and  gentlemen,  my 
nairves!  Zey  are — what  you  call  him? — all  un 
strung." 

"Nerves!"  ejaculated  "John  Peter"  with  su 
preme  contempt,  "here,  take  hold  of  my  hand ; 
steady,  isn't  it  ?  Feel  of  my  arm ;  firm  as  a  bar  of 
iron.  Yet  it  is  I,  not  you,  who  might  be  excused 
for  trembling.  You  are  a  nameless  inventor;  if  you 
fail,  you  are  no  worse  and  no  better  off  than  before 
— you  will  only  be  forgotten.  But  if  this  is  a 
fiasco,  I  shall  not  be  forgotten.  I  shall  be  ridiculed 
for  putting  any  stock  in  you ;  I  shall  be  reminded 
of  'a  fool  and  his  money.'  They'll  sneer  as  they 
say  that  'John  Peter'  wasn't  too  smart  to  be  gulled 
by  a  wild-eyed  crank.  Be  a  man,  for  heaven's 
sake." 

"Ah,  oui,  a  man.  Zat  ess  eet.  Zat  ees  what  I 
would  admire  to  be.  Mais,  how,  how,  Messieurs?" 

"As  good  a  way  as  I  know,"  broke  in  Neilson, 
lazily,  though  really  pitying  the  man's  mental  dis 
tress,  "would  be  for  you  to  assimilate  a  good  stiff 
horn  of  whiskey.  Norton,  can't  I  ring  for  a  stew 
ard  ?  It's  a  real  act  of  chanty,  you  know." 

116 


THE  LAUNCHING 

"As  you  like,  Neilson,"  returned  the  host, 
calmly,  ''though  to  my  mind  a  heart  that  has  to 
be  fired  with  that  sort  of  fuel  ought  to  be  banked 
for  good." 

The  miserable  object  of  Norton's  scorn  walked 
away  slowly  and  prepared  to  go  below.  But  just 
as  he  reached  the  companion-way  he  felt  a  light 
touch  on  his  arm,  and,  turning,  saw  a  delightful 
vision  in  blue  with  a  face  all  compassion  and  en 
couragement.  He  wondered  how  much  of  his 
denunciation  Helen  Norton  had  heard,  and  his 
shame  was  deeper  than  ever. 

"You  are  anxious,  M.  Deschapelles,"  she  said, 
kindly;  "so  are  we  all.  But  I — we — all,  believe  in 
you  and  the  ship." 

"You  do,  Mademoiselle?  You  think  I  have  not 
failed?" 

"Failed?  Certainly  not.  How  can  we  fail  with 
such  a  genius  as  yours  and  with  my  father  sup 
porting  it?" 

She  spoke  proudly,  as  befitting  the  daughter  of 
a  man  who  had  conquered  the  encrusted  conserva 
tism  of  New  York  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  courage 
and  ability.  And  as  the  poor  inventor  saw  the 
strong  light  of  faith  in  her  pretty  eyes,  he,  too, 
revived.  No  alcoholic  stimulant  could  have  had 
half  the  effect  of  this  womanly  help. 

Together  they  paced  the  deck  for  a  while,  the 
girl  cleverly  leading  the  conversation  away  from 
the  dark  topic  of  the  new  boat.  The  inventor 
began  to  smile  and  actually  lost  something  of  his 
haggard  look. 

As  they  walked  back  and  forth,  Craig  from  the 
group  of  magnates  looked  on  with  a  curious  sense 
of  solicitude.  Helen  must  certainly  be  annoyed  by 

117 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

the  vagaries  and  confidences  of  the  inventor.  She 
had  probably  begun  by  making  herself  agreeable, 
and  had  become  an  unwilling  victim.  Really,  it 
was  too  bad.  He  turned  to  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley  with 
an  expression  of  his  thought. 

"I  believe  Deschapelles  is  distressing  Miss  Nor 
ton  with  his  fears,"  he  said.  "Perhaps  I'd  better 
go  and  rescue  her." 

The  kindly  eyes  of  the  clergyman  followed  the 
figure  of  the  young  man  with  a  different  expres 
sion  than  was  usual  to  them — a  look  of  merry 
appreciation.  Every  man  to  his  own  duty, 
thought  the  kindly,  honest  gentleman,  and  if  the 
call  is  to  a  lovely  young  woman  who  smiles  when 
you  draw  near — why,  so  much  the  more  reason  for 
gratitude  to  providence. 

The  yacht  had  by  this  time  reached  its  moor 
ings,  and  Norton's  party  proceeded  to  disembark 
into  small  boats,  to  be  rowed  to  the  shipyard. 

"Vill  you  not  veesh  me  bon  fortune?"  whispered 
Deschapelles  to  Helen,  as  the  girl  was  preparing 
to  descend  the  landing-steps. 

She  smiled  and  extended  her  hand. 

"You  will  succeed,"  she  said,  and  the  memory 
of  that  hearty  hand-clasp  dwelt  with  the  inventor 
long  after  he  had  hurried  ashore  and  had  taken  his 
post  to  direct  the  event  of  the  day. 

The  scene  presented  to  the  thousands  of  eager 
eyes  was  one  long  remembered  in  the  records  of 
great  crowds  around  New  York.  From  either  side 
of  the  ways  extended  a  line  of  steamboats  and 
barges,  forming  a  lane  half  a  mile  in  length.  Flags 
fluttered,  bunting  waved,  bands  played  and  people 
cheered.  Around  and  behind  the  enclosure  multi 
tudes  were  massed  in  lavishly  adorned  stands,  ris- 

118  ' 


THE  LAUNCHING 

ing  high  into  the  air,  tier  upon  tier  of  solid  ranks. 

Over  the  place  of  mystery  was  a  gigantic  tent, 
at  each  corner  of  which  was  a  balloon  at  short 
tether.  At  once  the  stock  of  those  scientific  men 
who  had  predicted  an  aerial  car,  rose  enormously, 
and  the  other  disputants,  all  of  whom  were  col 
lected  on  a  stand  well  in  front,  were  silenced  into 
acquiescence. 

The  Norton  platform  near  the  water's  edge  was 
a  gorgeous  affair  covered  by  a  silken  canopy  and 
decorated  with  the  richest  of  velvet  and  costly 
rugs.  The  regal  fetes  of  the  Venetian  doges  had 
furnished  the  suggestion  for  the  structure,  and  the 
old  world  had  been  ransacked  for  fabrics  and  orna 
mentation. 

But  more  attractive  still  to  the  eyes  of  the  spec 
tators  was  the  figure  of  the  girl  in  pale  blue  who 
stood  in  a  little  golden  semi-circle  that  jutted  out 
from  the  capitalist's  stand.  Her  fluffy  golden  hair 
aureoled  her  sweet  face,  on  which  the  dainty  flag 
of  excitement  was  already  flying.  She  stood  there 
alone  before  that  myriad-band  of  men  and  women, 
undismayed,  and  yet  modest  as  a  Diana,  a  fit  type 
of  American  girlhood  at  its  purest  and  best. 

Only  for  a  moment,  however,  did  Helen  stand 
out  before  the  rest.  Then  she  touched  a  tiny  knob, 
and  immediately  the  balloons  rose  into  the  air 
carrying  with  them  the  great  tent,  and  revealing 
on  the  marine  stocks  the  strangest  craft  that  was 
ever  seen.  Its  most  striking  feature  was  a  series  of 
propellors  of  peculiar  corkscrew  type  along  the 
immense  hull  just  below  the  water-line  and  begin 
ning  back  of  amidships  on  either  side.  It  was  evi 
dent  to  the  crowd  that  tremendous  power  must  be 
a  characteristic  of  the  new  Norton  boat,  but  at 

119 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

what  expenditure  of  fuel  or  motive  force  could 
scarcely  be  estimated. 

Before  the  scientists  could  even  mentally  calcu 
late  the  cost  of  running  such  a  monster,  there  was 
a  great  creaking  of  timbers,  a  shrill  cry  of  triumph 
in  the  French  tongue,  and  the  sweet  exclamation 
of  a  girl  as  she  dashed  a  bottle  against  the  side  of 
the  descending  craft;  then,  amid  the  booming  of 
cannon,  the  flaring  outburst  of  a  gigantic  band  and 
the  shouts  of  tens  of  thousands  of  human  voices, 
the  boat  slid  into  the  sea  with  the  grace  of  a  water 
fowl,  and  rode  the  turbulent  waves  like  a  con 
queror. 

Only  those  near  the  Norton  stand  heard  the 
agonized  cry  of  a  woman  as  the  ponderous  vessel 
went  past;  only  a  few  saw  the  coil  of  a  great 
hawser,  as  if  it  had  been  some  malevolent  serpent, 
suddenly  snatch  up  a  lithe  figure  in  blue  and  whirl 
it  into  the  green  and  white  water  below.  Craig 
heard  and  saw,  and  the  picture  was  never  after 
ward  quite  effaced  from  his  consciousness. 

With  a  mighty  spring  he  leaped  over  the  velvet- 
bound  railing  and  plunged  into  the  swirling  water. 
Even  in  the  brief  second  of  his  descent  he  could  see 
Avhere  the  hawser  had  dragged  its  victim  below  the 
surface,  and  for  that  spot  he  swam  desperately.  A 
few  yards  ahead  appeared  a  mass  of  golden  hair 
floating  on  the  tide. 

"I'm  coming;  I'm  here,  Helen,"  he  cried,  but 
there  was  no  answer  and  no  sign  of  life  in  the  up 
turned  face.  Craig  knew  that  the  girl  was  a  good 
swimmer,  and  he  realized  that  the  cable  had 
crushed  animation,  perhaps  life  itself,  from  her 
body.  He  plunged  on  like  a  madman. 

Just  as  the  fair  head  was  slowly  settling  in  the 
1 20 


THE  LAUNCHING 

seething  water,  Craig  had  the  supreme  joy  of 
thrusting  an  arm  around  the  girl's  waist.  The 
touch  seemed  to  revive  her,  for  she  opened  her 
eyes  and  gazed  at  him  in  bewilderment.  She 
smiled,  too,  and  murmured  something  he  could 
not  understand.  But  he  felt  sure  that  she  knew 
she  was  safe. 

Boats  had  now  reached  them,  and  their  rescue 
was  prompt  and  easy.  The  Sea  Lion's  sailors 
rowed  them  swiftly  to  the  yacht,  where  John 
Norton  was  already  waiting  for  them.  Only  the 
deathly  pallor  of  his  face  showed  the  ordeal 
through  which  he  had  passed. 

"I  thank  you,  Philip,"  he  said,  simply,  as  he 
grasped  his  secretary's  hand.  "You  have  done  me 
a  great  service.  I  am  your  debtor,  and  I  shall  not 
forget  it." 


121 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

"DOC"    BAYLES   TELLS   A   STORY. 

PHILIP  CRAIG  lived  the  few  days  following 
the  rescue  as  one  in  a  dream.  Sleeping  or 
waking,  he  saw  the  fair  face  of  Helen  Norton 
floating  on  troubled  waters,  and  felt  the  pressure 
of  her  limp  body  against  his  own.  And  while  he 
shuddered  at  what  might  have  been,  he  rejoiced  at 
what  was,  for  the  episode  had  transformed  him 
from  an  admirer  to  a  lover.  There  was  no  further 
disguising  the  condition  of  his  heart.  He,  the 
strong  and  earnest  scion  of  a  stern  race,  was  a  slave 
who  courted  the  privilege  of  continuing  in 
shackles. 

The  usual  torture  of  uncertainty  was  his,  but  to 
a  more  than  usual  degree.  That  he,  without  any 
of  the  graces  he  thought  necessary  for  the  attrac 
tion  of  a  young  girl,  should  quicken  the  pulses  of 
the  pretty  Helen,  was  too  much  even  for  his  usu 
ally  serene  self-confidence.  For  the  first  time  in 
his  life  he  found  before  him  a  barrier  that  none  of 
his  ordinarily  trusted  qualities  could  overcome. 
So,  from  the  pinnacle  of  his  first  wild  exaltation, 
he  was  cast  down  into  the  depths  of  despair  in  the 
fashion  that  mankind  has  ever  known  since  the 
time  when  the  wooer  won  his  inamorata  by  the 
forcible  persuasion  of  the  club. 

There  came  occasional  bright  days  when  he  saw 
Helen  and  dwelt  in  the  sunshine  of  her  interest. 

122 


"DOC"  BAYLES  TELLS  A  STORY 

This  was,  of  course,  during  the  discussion  of  the 
plans  for  Bentley-on-Hudson,  The  walls  of  the 
hospital  were  already  partially  erected,  and  a  date 
had  been  set  for  the  dedication  ceremonies.  He 
found  that  there  was  a  something  new  in  their 
relations,  at  least  on  his  part — not  restraint  so  much 
as  the  feeling  of  awe  common  to  young  men  when 
they  are  in  that  stage  of  love  where  even  devotion 
seems  a  sort  of  profanation.  Yet  to  be  with  her, 
to  feel  the  subtle  currents  from  her  personality  to 
his,  to  read  what  he  might  in  her  eyes,  was  to 
Philip  sufficient  reward  for  whatever  gloom  he 
experienced  apart  from  her. 

He  was  a  busy  man  at  this  time,  too,  yet  not 
all  his  multiple  duties  as  John  Norton's  charge 
d'affaires  could  quite  banish  the  love-thought  from 
his  mind.  His  employer  had  once  or  twice  urged 
him  to  bring  certain  projects  of  which  he  had 
executive  control  to  as  speedy  completion  as  pos 
sible,  as  he  had  other  and  greater  plans  pending. 

The  trial  trip  of  the  Commerce — so  the  Descha- 
pelles  ship  was  named — brought  in  its  wake  a 
train  of  hard  work.  The  vessel  proved  to  be  a 
wonderful  craft,  indeed,  cutting  large  slices  from 
the  best  records  of  navigation,  and  the  demand 
for  the  type  was  immediate  and  insistent.  Con 
tracts  for  a  large  number  of  the  boats  had  to  be 
placed,  and  Craig  handled  every  detail  of  the  busi 
ness. 

At  times  the  French  inventor  nearly  drove  him 
frantic  with  his  suggestions  and  negations;  but 
pretending  interest  in  another  of  the  man's  cre 
ations,  he  finally  got  clear  of  him  by  inducing  him 
to  go  to  work  at  it. 

One  dull  afternoon,  about  two  weeks  after  the 
123 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

launching,  Craig  betook  himself  to  Oceanic  to 
consult  with  "Doc"  Bayles  about  the  disposal  of 
the  splendid  string  of  Norton's  race  horses.  They 
were  not  to  be  sold — "John  Peter"  would  have 
met  such  a  proposal  with  the  utmost  contempt, 
and  did,  in  fact,  nearly  annihilate  Haven  for 
mildly  suggesting  it.  All  the  noble  animals, 
save  King  Capital,  were  destined  to  be  gifts  to 
those  men  whom  Norton  cared  either  to  propi 
tiate  or  to  retain  as  financial  friends. 

At  the  entrance  to  the  great  circular  stable 
Philip  brushed  aside  the  flunky  who  was  for  call 
ing  Bayles  to  the  reception  room,  and  walked  out 
into  the  exercising  yard  in  the  rear,  where  he  felt 
reasonably  sure  of  finding  the  trainer.  And  there, 
in  fact,  "Doc"  was,  engaged  in  the  prosaic  task  of 
rubbing  an  old  horse's  knee  with  liniment.  He 
straightened  up  with  some  exertion,  and  touched 
his  cap  respectfully  to  the  protege  of  "John 
Peter."  In  view  of  the  rank  of  his  caller  he 
would  have  stopped  work  and  taken  him  to 
more  luxurious  quarters,  but  Craig  declined  to 
interrupt  such  a  laudable  task. 

"Go  on,  Bayles,"  he  said,  "we  can  talk  here  as 
well  as  anywhere  else.  A  sick  horse,  I  see." 

"Yes,  sir.  Rheumatism  bothers  Cowboy  power 
ful  bad  these  days.  He  ain't  never  got  used  to 
the  east  wind  hereabout." 

"Is  he  a  racer?" 

"Lord  bless  you,  sir,  no  indeed.  Just  an  old 
saddle  hoss  o'  mine.  Like  me,  he's  kinder  out 
lived  his  usefulness.  But  I  keep  him  for  the  sake 
of  other  days." 

The  old  fellow  stopped  again,  and  resumed  his 
rubbing,  while  his  equine  friend  lay  his  nose  on 

124 


"DOC"  BAYLES   TELLS  A   STORY 

the  man's  shoulder  and  closed  his  eyes  as  if  in 
great  content. 

"Seems  to  do  him  good,"  observed  Craig, 
touched  by  this  eloquent  tribute  to  the  trainer's 
kindness. 

"Yes  sir,  it  relieves  him  mightily.  Dunno's 
it  really  stops  the  pain,  but  it  makes  the  poor  old 
critter  feel  as  if  somebody  cared  for  him.  Do 
you  know,  sir" — and  he  looked  up  from  his  work 
with  a  faraway  expression — "do  you  know  I  think 
they  can  tell  when  a  man  cares  for  'em  by  the 
touch.  As  the  poet  says,  'the  first  inclination 
that  an  animal  has  is  to  protect  himself,'  and  that 
applies  to  hosses." 

Much  more  of  equines  and  of  authors  the  gar 
rulous  trainer  would  have  said  had  not  Craig  felt 
obliged  to  be  at  the  business  of  the  day.  He 
carefully  repeated  the  instructions  of  Norton  as 
to  the  disposal  of  the  horses,  and  gave  Bayles  a 
list  of  the  men  to  be  favored  and  the  location  of 
their  respective  stables.  "Doc"  was  to  ride  each 
animal  to  its  given  destination,  and  there  leave  it 
with  John  P.  Norton's  compliments. 

"And  that  being  done,  Bayles,"  continued  the 
secretary,  "you  are  to  report  to  Mr.  Norton's 
city  stables  for  duty." 

At  this  the  old  man's  face,  which  had  length 
ened  woefully  during  the  recital  of  the  plans  to 
break  up  the  string,  lighted  up  amazingly.  He 
chewed  his  wisp  of  hay  with  all  the  relish  of  old, 
and  actually  began  to  hum  a  bit  of  weird  tune. 
Then  something  else  occurred  to  him. 

"I — I  don't  like  to  look  a  gift  horse  in  the 
mouth,  Mr.  Craig,  but  why  are  we  to  go  there? 

125 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

There's  more  hands  there  now  than  they  really 
need." 

"Mr.  Norton  intends  to  have  you  take  charge 
of  the  stables  as  a  sort  of  general  overseer,  with 
your  son  to  do  the  active  supervision." 

Now  "Doc's"  simple  joy  was  complete,  his 
faith  sublime. 

"There,  I  told  'Muggsy'  that  it  was  a  horse  of 
that  color,  and  that  John  Norton  wouldn't  ever 
drive  us  where  we  couldn't  serve  him.  I  was  a 
bit  afeard,  though,  when  he  gave  us  that  piece  of 
paper." 

"What  paper?" 

"Why,  that  there  check  for  the  Handicap 
stakes.  Of  course  that  makes  us  independent,  if 
we  wants  to  use  it." 

"So  you  haven't  used  it?" 

"No,  siree.  Me  and  'Muggsy'  are  agreed  on 
that,  ain't  we,  youngster?"  This  to  his  hopeful, 
who  had  just  rolled  stolidly  up  to  the  region  of 
the  lame  horse. 

"We  are,  'Doc/  "  assented  the  son  without  a 
sign  of  emotion.  He  always  addressed  his  father 
after  the  manner  of  the  stable. 

"Who  knows,"  continued  the  elder  Bayles,  "but 
some  day — but,  there,  there.  This  here  stable's 
to  be  broken  up  right  away.  'A  short  hoss  is 
soon  curried,'  as  the — ."  Again  he  seemed  to  be 
lost  in  meditation.  "Tell  John  Pe — I  mean  Mr. 
Norton — that  we're  very  happy  that  he  remem 
bered  us;  aint  we,  'Muggsy'?" 

"Yes,  'Doc.' ' 

"Well,  why  in  thunder  don't  you  say  so,  then  ? 
Ain't  you  got  any  heart  in  yer?  Why,  I 

126 


"DOC"  BAYLES  TELLS  A  STORY 

shouldn't  wonder  if  you  was  in  love,  you  young 
rascal." 

At  this  direct  and  disturbing  accusation  the 
little  jockey  looked  very  sheepish  indeed,  and 
tried  to  hide  his  confusion  by  chewing  vigorously 
on  a  bit  of  cracked  corn  he  had  taken  from  a  grain- 
bin  near  by.  But  he  had  no  answer  to  make. 

"You  see,  sir,"  said  "Doc"  apologetically, 
"  'Muggsy's'  nerve  has  been  trained  so  fine  at 
horse  racing  ever  since  he  was  a  youngster  that 
he's  a  bit  slow  in  warming  up.  But  jest  you  say 
anything  about  Dandy  and  he'll  get  to  going  all 
right.  Dandy's  Miss  Norton's  hoss  now,  you 
know — going  to  be  sent  to  town  to-morrow,  and 
I'm  durned  if  he  don't  get  the  sweetest  and 
purtiest  mistress  a  critter  ever  had." 

At  the  mention  of  Helen,  Craig,  who  but  a 
moment  before  had  been  all  impatience  to  go,  now 
cast  about  for  some  plausible  excuse  to  stay.  So 
changes  the  very  atmosphere  of  a  place  upon 
which  has  been  breathed  a  loved  name. 

"You  know  Miss  Norton  well,  I  take  it,  Bayles," 
said  the  young  man  insinuatingly.  If  the  trainer 
were  as  loquacious  on  this  subject  as  on  that  of 
horses,  what  a  delightful  companion  he  must  be. 

"Since  she  was  knee  high  to  a  grasshopper,  sir. 
I  was  with  Mr.  Norton  long  afore  he  ever  owned 
any  race  hosses.  Nat'rally,  I  used  to  see  a  good 
deal  of  Miss  Helen,  and  she  of  me.  That  was  out 
west,  you  understand.  I  taught  her  to  ride,  and 
we've  had  many  a  good,  hard  gallop  over  the 
plains  together.  And  sometimes  when  it  rained 
she'd  come  out  to  the  stable  and  hear  me  read 
Shakespeare;  I  was  a  purty  good  reader  in  them 
days,  if  I  do  say  it,  afore  my  voice  got  kinks  in  it. 

127 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Anyways,  she  allus  said  so.  She  was  an  all-fired 
sweet  little  gal,  but,  Lord  love  you,  she  was  an 
independent  puss,  too.  Used  to  set  her  will  up 
again  her  father's,  and  sometimes  she'd  win. 
Why,  I  remember  once — but  mebbe  I'm  tiring 
you  with  all  this  gab,  Mr.  Craig." 

"Go  on,  Bayles,"  urged  Philip.  This  was  more 
enchanting  than  even  the  music  of  the  "new  ton 
ality." 

"Well,  sir,  one  time  when  Miss  Helen  was  about 
nine  she  happened  to  see  some  of  us  brandin'  a 
hoss.  My,  how  mad  she  was!  She  didn't  git 
over  it  for  a  week.  Some  time  arter  that  we  had 
about  a  dozen  new  hosses  arrive,  and  Miss  Helen 
she  overheard  some  talk  about  brandin'  them, 
too. 

"You  kin  jest  bet  she  made  a  great  row — for 
bid  me  to  do  it,  and  so  on.  But  I  told  her  that 
orders  was  orders,  and  I  had  to  obey  'em.  Then 
she  rushed  off  to  find  her  father  and  git  him  to 
stop  the  brandin'. 

"Purty  soon  she  come  back,  and  I  could  see  by 
her  face  that  she  hadn't  succeeded. 
"Well,  how  'bout  it?'  says  I. 

"  'Papa  says  that  it  has  to  be  done,  or  else  the 
hosses  will  all  get  lost  or  stolen,'  she  says.  'There 
has  to  be  something  to  'dentify  'em.'  And  with 
that  she  dried  her  eyes,  and  goes  off  to  play,  and  I 
thought  no  more  about  it. 

"The  hosses  was  to  be  branded  next  day,  and  I 
got  up  early  so's  to  git  the  job  off  and  out  the  way 
afore  Miss  Helen  came  'round.  But  when  I 
opened  the  door  of  trie  stable  and  looked  down 
the  row  of  stalls,  I  see  the  durndest,.  queerest 
sight  a  man  ever  laid  eyes  on.  Every  blamed 

128 


"DOC"  BAYLES  TELLS  A  STORY. 

how  had  a  bit  o'  pasteboard  tied  'round  his  off 
hind  leg  with  a  blue  ribbon!  I  found  that  each 
one  was  a  business  card  o'  John  Norton's,  and 
on  'em  was  written  in  ink:  'Please  Return.' ' 

At  the  remembrance  of  this  startling  event 
even  "Muggsy"  came  out  from  his  apathetic  state. 
A  grin  wrinkled  his  little  face,  and  then  he  laughed 
with  a  staccato  series  of  chuckles  that  resembled 
nothing  so  much  as  the  bark  of  a  prairie-dog. 

"Well,  sir,"  went  on  "Doc,"  "that  blessed  gal 
had  been  out  in  the  night  and  tied  on  them  cards 
to  see  if  it  wouldn't  satisfy  her  father  on  the 
identification  business.  How  she  ever  escaped 
bein'  kicked  to  death  was  a  miracle;  the  Lord 
must  a'  took  good  care  of  her. 

"When  Mr.  Norton  heard  of  it  he  give  orders 
that  there  weren't  to  be  no  brandin'  and  the  hosses 
went  gallavantin'  'round  the  plains  with  them 
cards  on  till  they  was  all  wore  out.  Arter  that 
we  made  metal  tags  fastened  on  with  little  chains, 
and  brandin'  was  given  up  altogether.  And  that 
there  gal  did  the  whole  thing,  bless  her  purty  blue 
eyes.  She's  thoroughbred,  and  nothin'  else." 

"That's  so;  'Doc,'  "  said  "Muggsy"  sagely. 

"That's  so,  'Doc/  "  said  Philip  Craig  to  himself 
fervently,  as  he  took  his  leave  and  went  back  to 
plunge  anew  into  the  maelstrom  of  the  great  city. 


129 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

A  DAY  IN  JUNE. 

PHILIP'S  love  for  Helen  burned  the  more  ar 
dently  by  concealment,  as  is  the  habit  of  that 
species  of  conflagration.     His  rather  high- 
strung  conscientiousness  kept  him  from  being  an 
open  wooer  for  two  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  he  felt  that  it  would  be  almost 
disloyal  to  his  employer  to  take  advantage  of  the 
situation  in  which  he  had  been  placed  with  such 
entire  confidence.  Proximity,  the  most  powerful 
of  all  Cupid's  friends,  had  been  granted  him 
solely  in  a  business  way,  and  he  was  not  the  man 
to  use  it  to  further  his  own  love-interest. 

Again,  he  knew  that,  as  yet,  he  had  not  proven 
himself,  had  not  "arrived."  To  be  worthy  of 
Helen  Norton  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  or  even 
in  his  own  regard,  he  must  do  something  far  more 
notable  than  to  act  successfully  as  executive  agent 
for  a  millionaire's  carefully  outlined  plans.  He 
was  sure  that  with  "John  Peter"  it  would  be 
achievement  and  not  descent,  nor  moral  qualities, 
nor  even  mere  money,  that  would  best  plead  his 
cause  as  a  suitor. 

So  he  forced  himself  to  bide  his  time.  He  would 
distinguish  himself  in  some  way  and  at  some  time; 
of  that  he  had  little  doubt.  Then . 

But  for  young  blood  to  martyrize  itself  is  no 
easy  task,  especially  when  it  flows  in  contiguity  to 

130 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE 

other  young-  blood  of  opposite  sex  molecules. 
Craig  realized  this  on  many  occasions.  Being  a 
sensible  young  man,  he  knew  that  he  was  persona 
grata  to  the  pretty  daughter  of  the  house  of  Nor 
ton  ;  he  was  often  sorely  tempted  to  make  a  further 
test  of  her  sentiments,  and  know  his  fate  once  and 
for  all.  Then  up  would  rise  his  delicate  sense  of 
honor  and  guard  the  slight  barrier  so  firmly  that 
he  would  not  try  to  break  through. 

He  was  almost  glad,  therefore,  when,  one  day 
in  June,  Norton  called  him  to  his  private  office 
and  told  him  to  be  in  readiness  for  a  European  trip 
to  occupy,  it  might  be,  several  months.  He  had 
a  certain  feeling  of  relief  that  he  was  to  be  re 
moved  from  associations  that  might  any  day  strain 
his  fortitude  to  the  breaking  point.  And  even  in 
foreign  lands  he  could  go  on  with  his  dreams; 
baseless  hope  was  better  than  shattered  hope,  he 
told  himself. 

Another  thing  that  cheered  him  in  a  really  pos 
itive  way  was  Norton's  announcement  that  this 
European  mission  was  one  of  vast  importance,  and 
that  if  he  carried  it  through  successfully,  he  would 
be  substantially  advanced  in  salary  and  power. 
"And  all  for  her  sake,"  thought  Philip. 

What  the  great  errand  might  be  gave  him  little 
concern;  in  fact,  he  had  never  attempted  to  probe 
beneath  the  surface  of  his  chief's  undertakings. 
He  had  done  his  work  faithfully  and  well,  neither 
asking  nor  desiring  any  explanations.  He  did  not 
know  it,  but  this  soldierly  quality  had  been  one  of 
his  chief  means  of  finding  favor  with  the  impassive 
Norton.  And  now,  when  confronted  by  a  pro 
posal  that  would  have  thrown  many  men  into  ec- 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

stacies  of  delight  or  tortures  of  nervousness,  he 
replied  simply: — 

"Very  well,  sir.  I  will  go  home  at  once,  and  be 
in  readiness  in  the  early  afternoon." 

"I  scarcely  think  there  is  need  for  quite  so  much 
haste,"  returned  Norton  with  a  smile.  "You  may 
not  go  for  a  week  yet.  Let's  see,  aren't  there 
some  dedicatory  exercises  up  the  Hudson  at  which 
you  must  be  the  animating  spirit?" 

"Yes,  sir;  a  week  from  next  Tuesday." 

The  question  and  its  answer  all  at  once  sug 
gested  a  new  thought  to  Philip.  Would  it  not  be 
honorable,  would  it  not  be  best  for  himself  to  seize 
this  opportunity  to  tell  John  Norton  of  his  love 
for  Helen,  to  ask  to  be  a  tentative  lover  whose 
future  would  depend  on  his  own  accomplishings? 
But,  with  swift  reasoning,  he  decided  against  it. 
Instinct  told  him  that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe. 
As  for  concealment,  "silent  affection  can  do  no 
harm,"  he  thought.  "I  shall  be  no  less  the  faithful 
employe  because  I  remain  the  undeclared  lover," 
and  so  the  opportunity  went  by. 

John  Norton  declined  to  go  to  the  dedication 
of  Bentley-on-Hudson,  and  his  reasons  were 
characteristic. 

"If  I  should  go,"  he  declared  to  his  disappointed 
daughter,  "the  newspapers  would  slop  all  over 
the  thing,  and  very  likely  accuse  me  of  all  sorts 
of  unwholesome  motives.  You  and  your  mother 
will  attract  very  little  attention,  my  dear.  Besides, 
I'm  extremely  busy.  But  you  know  I  am  heartily 
in  sympathy  with  your  scheme,  and  if  you  should 
need  anything  more,  call  on  me." 

The  weather  was  graciously  fitting  for  the  occa 
sion;  it  was  the  rich  mellowness  of  mature  June, 

132 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE 

when  the  youth  of  summer  is  still  above  suspicion. 
Around  the  hospital  were  waving  fields  of  grass, 
with  their  myriad  points  of  wild-flowers  and  their 
sweet,  \varm  odors.  Further  back  were  the  forests 
of  spraying  green,  long  untouched  by  any  axe. 
Birds  were  furnishing  the  music  for  the  ceremony 
far  more  enthusiastically  than  could  any  hired  per 
formers.  It  was  a  day  when  young  hearts  could 
revel  in  life  and  older  ones  be  at  peace. 

The  dedication  was  simplicity  itself.  Besides 
Rev.  Mr.  Bentley,  Mrs.  Norton,  Helen,  Armisted 
and  a  few  contractors,  the  only  others  present 
were  a  couple  of  city  reporters  whose  chiefs,  in 
that  mysterious  manner  known  to  editors,  had  got 
ten  wind  of  what  was  going  on.  These  two  gen 
tlemen  looked  rather  disgusted  at  the  apparent 
poverty  of  the  event  in  a  news  sense.  They  had 
expected  some  elaborate  function  on  the  usual 
Norton  scale,  with  perhaps  a  "feed"  that  would 
justify  their  coming. 

This  pair  Craig  received  graciously,  for  he  knew 
it  to  be  a  theory  of  John  Norton's  that  it  was 
cheaper  to  conciliate  than  to  offend  even  the 
most  offensively  hostile  journal.  They  were 
tactfully  led  to  suppose  that  Mr.  Bentley  was  the 
real  projector  of  the  work,  and  this  they  were 
quite  ready  to  believe ;  they  were  therefore  pleased 
to  perform  what  they  considered  a  public  spirited 
action. 

In  pursuance  of  the  Norton  policy'  of  never 
depriving  any  portion  of  the  press  of  news  given 
to  others,  Philip  decided  to  send  out  a  duplicate 
telegram  to  papers  and  news  associations  giving 
the  salient  points  of  the  day's  event. 

The  exercises  were  soon  over.  Grouped  about 
J33 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  fountain  in  the  fine  central  courtyard,  the  little 
party  listened  to  a  few  words  from  Armisted  on 
the  structural  advantages  of  the  building,  and 
then  to  a  prayer  from  Mr.  Bentley,  who  asked 
the  blessing  of  God  on  the  undertaking. 

As  Helen  gazed  at  the  little  man,  his  head 
bowed  in  prayer  and  his  fine  voice  attuned  to  the 
tenderest  and  most  solemn  tones,  she  saw  him 
as  one  transfigured,  and  forgot  all  the  oddities  of 
his  appearance  in  her  admiration  for  his  beautiful 
nature. 

At  the  end  of  the  ceremony  there  was  found  to 
be  an  hour's  wait  before  they  needed  to  take  car 
riages  to  the  station  to  meet  their  train.  Philip 
had  completed  his  telegram  to  the  papers,  and 
announced  that  he  would  walk  on  ahead,  file  his 
message  and  wait  for  the  others. 

"A  walk?"  exclaimed  Helen,  "that's  just  the 
thing.  Then  you  won't  have  to  take  that  stuffy 
old  hack.  Mama,  why  can't  we  walk,  too?" 

Mrs.   Norton  was  rather  dubious. 

"I'm  afraid,  my  dear,  that  these  rough  roads 
will  be  a  bit  too  much  for  me.  But  you  may 
walk  if  you  wish.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr. 
Craig  will  let  you  go  with  him." 

"Will  you,"  Mr.  Craig?"  she  asked,  with  a 
charming  air  of  demanding  a  favor  she  knew  was 
already  granted. 

Would  he?  He  felt  the  blood  leap  from  his 
heart  and  somehow  tighten  his  throat.  To  walk 
with  her  alone  under  the  June  sky  and  through  the 
blossoming  loveliness  of  the  country,  was  more 
happiness  than  he  had  dreamed  of.  Would  he? 

"I  shall  be  delighted,"  he  said  truly  and  with 
what  calm  he  could  summon  up.  "Perhaps  we 

134 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE 

had  better  be  starting  on,  so  that  we  may  not 
have  to  hurry." 

Hurry !  He  knew  that  he  would  not  hurry 
for  all  the  telegrams  and  trains  in  the  world.  He 
knew  that  he  would  make  this  golden  hour  so 
full  of  precious  seconds  that  the  laws  of  time 
would  seem  to  be  null  and  void.  He  knew  him 
self  for  a  hypocrite,  who  only  wanted  to  get  a 
young  girl  quickly  away  into  his  own  keeping; 
and  he  gloried  in  the  knowledge. 

As  they  proceeded  along  the  winding  country 
road,  a  silence  fell  upon  them  after  the  first  few 
words  about  the  hospital.  For  Craig  this  was  no 
hardship;  to  be  walking  with  this  desirable  maid 
on  such  a  day  was  a  sufficient  gift  from  provi 
dence. 

Helen  was  still  pondering  over  the  approaching 
tenancy  of  Bentley-on-Hudson  by  the  tiny  halt 
and  maimed,  and  Craig  could  read  the  traces  of 
feeling  on  her  expressive  face.  He  blessed  the 
"stuffy  hack"  that  had  given  him  this  piece  of 
happiness,  and  he  was  thankful  that  the  road  was 
comparatively  free  from  travel.  Once  when  a  rosy 
young  Hebrew  peddler,  pack  on  back,  passed  them 
with  a  lively  whistled  tune,  he  was  almost  inclined 
to  resent  the  fellow's  journey  as  an  intrusion. 

By  and  by  they  came  to  a  little  wooded  dell 
where  a  brook  passed  under  the  road.  The  sight 
of  it  roused  the  girl  from  her  revery.  The  warm 
sun  and  brisk  walk  had  set  a  flush  on  her  cheeks, 
and  the  shade's  appeal  was  very  inviting. 

"Oh.  let's  rest  here  a  bit,  Mr.  Craig,"  she  cried. 
"I  confess  I'm  rather  warm.  We've  plenty  of 
time,  haven't  we?" 

"Plenty;  but  I  think  there's  a  prettier  place  up 
135 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

the  brook  a  little  way,"  returned  the  young  man 
diplomatically.  "See,  the  trees  are  shadier  and 
there  is  a  fine  rock  to  sit  on." 

"All  right,"  she  agreed  cheerily,  "you  lower 
one  bar,  and  I'll  vault  the  others."  And  over  she 
went,  touching  one  hand  lightly,  with  all  the  grace 
of  a  trained  steeple-chaser. 

Philip's  dell  was  certainly  an  improvement  on 
the  other,  and  Helen  admitted  as  much.  She  sat 
down  on  a  large,  smooth  rock  overlooking  a  dark 
pool  wherein  seemed  to  lurk  piscatorial  possibili 
ties. 

Philip  threw  himself  on  some  soft  moss  at  her 
feet  and  watched  her  remove  her  hat  with  a  child 
ish  delight.  A  simple  thing — the  removing  of  a 
hat — and  yet  it  seemed  to  him  under  the  circum 
stances  intimate  and  intoxicating.  He  thought 
she  had  never  looked  lovelier  than  at  that 
moment. 

Helen  was  now  as  full  of  animated  chatter  as 
she  had  before  been  held  by  silence. 

"What  a  beautiful  place  this  is !"  she  exclaimed. 
"It  will  really  seem  to  the  poor  children  as  if  they 
had  reached  heaven.  There,  I  suppose  Mr.  Bent- 
ley  would  think  that  speech  sacrilegious." 

"It  certainly  will  be  heaven  compared  to  their 
home  surroundings,"  said  Philip. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  she  returned  fervently.  "Oh,  you 
should  have  seen  what  I  did  to-day !  I  went  to  see 
a  little  chap  whose  leg  is  bent  way  up  under  his 
body  and  will  never  straighten,  they  say.  And  the 
horror  of  his  home !  No  sun,  no  air,  hardly  any 
light.  What  a  blessed  change  it  will  be  to — this. 
I  shall  love  to  come  here  often  while  the  building 

136 


A  DAY  IN  JUNE 

is  going  on ;  and  you  will  come  here,  too,  of 
course,  Mr.  Craig?" 

"Yes,  if  I  am  so  situated  that  I  can;  business, 
you  know." 

"Yes,  but  my  father  said  you  were  to  supervise 
everything;  he'll  find  time  for  you." 

"If  I  am  here — if. I  am  in  New  York,  I  mean." 

"Why,  you  are  not  thinking  of  leaving  us — of 
leaving  my  father?" 

Did  he  detect  a  note  of  vague  alarm  in  her 
voice?  For  a  brief  moment  he  thought  so,  and 
then  he  was  smiling  at  his  own  folly. 

"No,  I  have  no  thought  of  leaving,"  he  replied, 
"but  Mr.  Norton  warned  me  the  other  day  to  be 
in  readiness  at  an  hour's  notice  to  start  for 
Europe." 

"For  Europe?    You?    For  how  long?" 

"He  did  not  say,  but  as  the  undertaking  is  of 
importance  I  imagine  it  means  a  considerable 
time." 

The  girl  made  no  further  comment,  and  again 
silence  crept  between  them,  a  stillness  that  not 
even  the  wild  paean  of  a  bobolink  in  a  neighbor 
ing  hay  field  could  render  less  oppressive. 

A  great  dread  came  over  Craig's  heart,  the  fear 
that  at  any  time  the  call  of  duty  would  set  the 
seal  of  repression  upon  him.  Why  should  he  more 
than  other  men,  happy  lovers,  be  driven  from  his 
Eden  because  of  his  o\vn  folly  of  dumbness?  He 
idly  wondered  if  Adam  had  no  inclination  to  fight 
the  angel  of  the  flaming  sword  when  turned  out 
of  Paradise.  He  began  to  throw  pebbles  into  the 
brook,  aimlessly. 

At  last  something  in  Helen  s  iong  silence  at 
tracted  his  attention.  He  saw  that  she  was 

137 


O.V  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

looking  to  the  thin  strip  of  the  blue  Hudson,  just 
visible  between  the  trees  and  far  away  to  the 
north.  Her  gaze  was  dull  and  wistful,  and  his 
heart  grieved  at  the  change  upon  the  fair  face. 
Was  it  what  he  had  told  her?  Was  it — ? 

"Helen,"  he  said,  choosing  his  words  with  great 
deliberation,  "would  you  care  if  I  were  going  away 
never  to  return?" 

"Never?"  she  echoed  with  a  curious  accent,  as 
if  she  had  heard  but  did  not  understand. 

"If  I  were  to  go  to  a  faraway  land,  if  I  were 
never  to  see  you  again — would  you  be  sorry?" 

A  hunted  look  came  into  her  blue  eyes,  an  ex 
pression  of  protest  as  at  some  undeserved  punish 
ment. 

"Sorry?    Oh,  Mr.  Craig,  I— I—" 

"And  if  I  went,  would  you  wish  me  to  go  with 
an  unspoken  secret?" 

"A  secret?" 

"My,  dear — yes.     The  secret  that  I  love  you." 

He  rose  to  his  feet  in  the  stress  of  his  emotion, 
and  paced  the  mossy  ground. 

"There,  I've  blurted  it  out,"  he  cried.  "Per 
haps  you  will  despise  me  for  it,  but  you  cannot 
refuse  at  least  my  friendship.  And  if  it  is  pre 
sumption,  you  will  pardon  me  for  it?" 

There  was  no  answer.  He  turned  and  saw  that 
the  girl's  face  was  buried  in  her  hands  and  that 
her  shoulders  heaved  gently. 

"Don't — don't  be  troubled,"  he  said  tenderly. 
"I  can't  bear  to  see  you  troubled." 

He  gently  stroked  her  fair  hair  with  a  touch  of 
infinite  love  and  devotion.  At  that  she  raised 
her  head,  and  her  eyes,  moist  and  filled  with  a 
light  that  was  newly  born,  looked  into  his.  With 

138 


A  DAY.  IN  JUNE 

that  adorable  gaze  the  golden  world  around  him 
seemed  to  flash  fire. 

"Helen,"  he  cried,  "you  cannot  mean  it;  you 
cannot — " 

She  spoke  no  word,  but  on  her  beautiful  face 
was  woman's  yielding,  woman's  answer,  in  the 
tender  dawning  of  a  smile.  Ever  so  little  her  head 
bowed  its  allegiance,  so  slightly,  indeed,  that  he 
thought  it  only  his  fancy.  Then  she  rose,  and, 
trembling,  stepped  toward  his  outstretched  arms. 

But  quicker  than  she,  he  sprang  forward  and 
clasped  her  willing  body  against  his  own,  straining 
her  in  a  passionate  embrace  that  spoke  of  long 
repression.  An  ardent  kiss  sealed  their  troth,  and 
for  both  there  was  born  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth. 

From  that  moment  and  as  long  as  he  lived  the 
odor  of  new  mown  hay  was  for  Philip  Craig  the 
very  perfume  of  love. 


139 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A  BOLT  FROM  THE  BLUE. 

T  UST  how  Philip  Craig  piloted  his  party  home 
from  Bentley-on-Hudson  was  never  quite 
clear  to  him.  He  had  a  misty  recollection  of 
trains,  tickets,  swift  motion,  a  carriage  and  a  ten 
der  pressure  of  the  hand  at  parting.  Quite  free 
from  mental  fog,  however,  was  the  picture  of  a 
face,  the  glance  of  blue  eyes  in  which  a  new  light 
shone,  the  radiance  of  a  happy  smile.  Love  may 
be  blind  himself,  but  he  gives  his  devotees  so 
marvelously  clear  a  vision  that  they  see  beyond 
the  veil  of  mere  physical  attributes.  So  to  Craig 
this  pretty  young  Helen  Norton  was  a  veritable 
Helen  of  Troy,  worth  the  loss  of  a  kingdom  or  the 
battles  of  years. 

And  was  he  beloved  in  return,  he  asked  himself, 
as  he  sat  in  his  library  that  night  and  tried  to  read. 
Ah,  yes,  for  beside  the  yielding  and  the  kiss  he 
had  a  tangible  pledge  of  their  plighted  troth. 
Fumbling  in  his  pocket  he  drew  forth  a  tiny 
square  of  lace-bordered  muslin  that  she  had  shyly 
thrust  into  his  hand  when  he  had  asked  for  a 
token.  As  he  kissed  it  in  the  way  of  lovers,  its 
subtle  fragrance  seemed  to  him  as  the  odor  of  new 
mown  hay,  the  scent  of  which  still  intoxicated  his 
brain.  And  if  his  dreams  were  all  of  Helen  that 
night,  perhaps  it  was  due  to  the  magic  influence 
of  the  pretty  trifle  that  rested  beneath  his  pillow. 

140 


A  BOLT  FROM  THE  BLUE 

The  morning  light  roused  him  into  the  realiza 
tion  that  the  world  does  not  stand  still  upon  its 
axis  simply  because  it  bears  a  new  pair  of  lovers 
on  its  course.  He  sprang  into  the  activities  of  the 
day  with  an  energy  and  zest  he  had  never  known 
before.  It  was  a  wonderful  thing,  this  life,  and  all 
the  people  who  shared  it  with  him  were  superior 
beings. 

"John,"  said  he  to  the  negro  elevator  boy  as 
they  reached  the  ground  floor,  "how  long  is  it 
since  I  gave  you  anything?" 

Tlr\  dusky  youth  grinned  with  mirthful  antici 
pation. 

"Well,  sah,  I  doan  adzackly  remember,  sah;  but 
I  specks  it's  about — lemme  see — one,  two — 

"Well,  never  mind ;  here's  a  dollar  for  you.  I 
want  you  to  look  sharp  after  some  parcels  I'm 
going  to  have  sent  home  to-day." 

"Yes.  sah ;  you  kin  'pend  on  me,  sah.  Mornin' 
sah." 

As  Philip  was  leaving  the  house  he  \vas  met  by 
a  telegraph  messenger  who  had  just  alighted  from 
his  auto-cycle. 

"Telegram  for  you,  sir,"  said  the  boy,  who  knew 
Craig  by  sight.  "It  was  given  me  as  'rush/  and  I 
just  hustled  up  here  with  it,  you  bet." 

"Right,  my  boy.  And  here's  something  to 
encourage  you." 

Still  in  his  happy  frame  of  mind  Philip  opened 
the  envelope  absently.  One  glance  at  the  signa 
ture  of  the  dispatch  quickened  him  into  apprehen 
sive  interest.  Then  he  read : — 

"Come  to  the  office  at  once,  dropping  all  other 
matters.  J.  P.  Norton." 

141 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

He  crunched  the  bit  of  paper  in  his  fist,  and 
turned  back  toward  his  apartments. 

"So  it's  come,"  he  muttered,  "and  to-day  of  all 
days '"  He  pulled  his  newspaper  from  his  pocket 
nnd  hurriedly  searched  for  the  shipping  depart 
ment. 

"Yes,  here  it  is,"  he  said  aloud,  to  the  wonder 
ment  of  his  friend,  the  elevator  boy,  "at  noon, 
3Oth,  the  Webster  for  Liverpool  and  the  Sachem 
for  Bremen.  I  wonder  which  it  will  be." 

He  had  taken  Norton's  previous  instructions  so 
closely  to  heart  that  it  was  but  the  matter  of  a 
few  minutes  to  lock  his  luggage,  close  his  apart 
ment  and  proceed  down  town  in  perfect  readiness 
for  a  trip  to  Europe  or  the  remotest  antipodes. 

Yesterday  he  might  have  been  glad  of  the  sum 
mons;  to-day  he  was  disposed  to  rebel  at  fate. 
Yesterday  he  loved;  to-day  he  loved  and  was 
loved  again — a  difference  so  vast  as  to  make  of 
him  a  constructive  mutineer  against  his  chief. 
But  the  folly  of  any  thought  of  disobedience 
against  John  Norton,  her  father,  \vas  borne  in 
upon  him  with  such  force  that  he  almost  laughed 
aloud.  Then  came  a  ray  of  hope,  quickly  fading, 
however. 

"I  will  tell  him  all,"  he  thought,  "and  perhaps — 
but  no.  With  him  business  is  above  everything 
else.  What  right  have  hearts  to  get  tangled  up 
in  his  affairs?  Still,  I  shall  tell  him,  and  ask  him 
to  explain  to  Helen.  It  is  useless  to  try  to  see  her 
before  I  go." 

At  the  office  he  was  met  by  a  clerk  who  told  him 
that  Norton  wished  to  be  notified  immediately 
upon  his  arrival.  The  man  disappeared,  and 
returned  a  moment  later. 

142 


A   BOLT  FROM  THE  BLUE 

"Mr.  Norton  will  see  you  in  about  fifteen  min 
utes,"  he  said,  "he  is  engaged  with  his  stenog 
rapher  just  now." 

Philip  literally  passed  a  very  bad  quarter  of  an 
hour  at  his  own  desk.  The  time  dragged  dismally, 
and  his  love-thoughts  were  tinged  with  a  melan 
choly  he  could  not  shake  off.  He  wondered  what 
Helen  would  say  when  she  heard  the  news,  and 
whether  she  would  not  blame  him  for  going,  even 
at  her  father's  command,  without  a  word  of  fare 
well.  Then  he  smiled  at  his  own  stupidity.  He 
wrould  write,  of  course. 

He  penned  a  brief  and  fervent  note  of  love  and 
regret.  He  could  say  little,  for  what  assurance 
had  he  to  give,  who  knew  nothing  of  his  under 
taking  or  its  duration?  Bitter  doubts,  fitted  to  his 
mood,  assailed  him.  Who  could  tell  but  that 
yesterday's  yielding  was  but  the  fruit  of  the  day 
and  the  place?  Might  not  separation  dull  the 
keenness  of  affection  on  Helen's  part,  and  give 
opportunity  to  other  suitors?  She  would  not  be 
to  blame,  he  told  himself,  for  young  love  demands 
its  daily  food,  though  it  be  nothing  more  substan 
tial  than  ambrosia.  Then  came  the  natural 
reaction  to  better  thoughts,  and  he  saw  again  the 
light  of  happy  confidence  in  those  blue  eyes;  were 
they  not  radiant  with  steadfast  promise? 

The  incisive  voice  of  the  head  clerk  broke  in 
upon  his  musings.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  tone 
had  something  more  of  deference  than  usual. 

"Mr.  Norton  asks  if  you  will  come  to  him  at 
once,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Craig.  And,  by  the  way, 
might  I  be  allowed  to  offer  my  congratulations?" 

"Why — why — of  course;  thank  you,"  mumbled 
Craig  rather  incoherently. 

143 


O.V   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Well,  well,"  muttered  the  clerk,  as  Philip 
crossed  to  the  door  of  the  private  office,  "I  never 
saw  him  unnerved  before.  But  who  could  wonder 
— such  responsibility." 

The  head  of  the  house  greeted  him  with  a  smile, 
but  waved  him  into  silence  as  he  dismissed  his 
stenographer. 

"It  will  have  to  be  short  stories,  Philip,"  he 
said.  "Pardon  my  abruptness,  but  I  must  do  all 
the  talking.  Now  that  we  are  alone,  let  me  talk 
freely.  Here  are  your  instructions." 

He  took  from  his  desk  several  large,  heavy  linen 
envelopes  which  seemed  on  the  point  of  bursting 
with  papers.  Philip  started  to  speak. 

"No,  not  a  word,  please,"  continued  his  chief. 
"There  are  less  than  two  hours,  and  much  must  be 
done  before  the  steamer  sails.  Philip — "  and  a 
strangely  gentle  tone  altered  his  voice — "Philip,  I 
think  it  is  due  you  that  I  should  tell  you  what  led 
me  to  pick  you  from  the  ruck  of  your  associates 
and  advance  you  as  I  have  done.  You  will  under 
stand  me  better  then,  and  we  will  work  better 
together." 

Philip  marveled  once  more  at  the  manner  of 
man  he  saw  before  him,  a  man  who  could  plead 
poverty  of  time,  and  yet  begin  a  personal  explana 
tion  of  the  most  intimate  sort.  But  the  friendly 
tone  also  filled  him  with  delight,  for  now  it  seemed 
as  if  he  might  indeed  break  down  the  embargo  of 
silence  and  tell  of  his  love  for  Helen. 

"I  was  first  attracted  to  you,"  went  on  the 
steady,  kindly  voice,  "by  your  faithful  perfor 
mance  of  your  humble  duties  as  a  paper  carrier. 
After  you  entered  my  employ  you  pleased  me  in 
many  ways.  You  never  gossiped.  I  told  you 

144 


A  BOLT  FROM  THE  BLUE 

things  that  many  another  boy  would  have  been 
quick  to  retail  to  his  fellows  to  gain  a  fictitious 
value  by  his  superior  knowledge.  In  higher 
places  you  were  just  as  reticent.  You  did  what 
you  were  told  in  the  way  you  were  told,  if  you 
could;  if  not,  in  some  other  way.  You  didn't 
trouble  me  with  inquiries  and  requests  for  new  in 
structions.  You  had  initiative  and  ideas  of  your 
own.  Your  ability — but  any  man  could  see  you 
had  that.  In  the  past  year,  with  added  responsi 
bilities,  you  have  always  proved  equal  to  any 
emergency.  In  a  word,  you  have  come  nearer  to 
doing  things  as  I  myself  would  do  them  than  any 
one  ever  associated  with  me." 

In  the  moment's  pause  that  ensued  Philip's 
natural  embarrassment  rose  to  his  face.  But  the 
eulogy  was  not  yet  completed. 

"When  I  decided  that  the  trip  abroad  was  neces 
sary,  I  knew  that  no  man  but  you,  except  myself, 
could  be  entrusted  with  it.  You  will  realize  this 
when  you  read  those  instructions." 

The  young  man  looked  vaguely  at  the  en 
velopes,  which  suddenly  seemed  to  be  a  leaden 
weight  in  his  hands. 

"Philip,"  said  his  employer  with  intense  serious 
ness,  "I  never  inquired  about  your  early  life  and 
family,  and  did  not  care  to  know.  I  take  men  as 
they  are,  and  not  as  their  parents  were.  I  feel  that 
in  you — come  in." 

This  last  was  in  answer  to  a  knock  on  the  door, 
and  the  head  clerk  entered. 

"The  auto-car  is  at  the  door,  sir,"  he  said,  "and 
it  is  now  half-past  ten." 

"Thank  you,"  returned  the  chief.  "Now  good- 
by,  Philip.  Read  your  instructions;  I  know  you 

H5 


will  not  follow  them  slavishly.  For  many  reasons 
I  regret  that  I  must  take  this  journey,  instead  of 
you,  but  it  had  to  be." 

Had  a  mine  exploded  under  his  feet  Philip 
would  have  felt  less  startled  and  dazed.  When 
the  fiery  intensity  of  the  words,  had  burned  their 
meaning  into  his  intelligence,  a  great  flood  of  joy 
came  too.  He  was  to  remain  at  home,  home 
where  dwelt  the  woman  of  his  heart.  But  now 
there  was  more  need  than  ever  that  he  should 
speak.  Norton  was  already  departing. 

"Mr.  Norton,"  he  cried,  "I— 

"I  cannot  delay  another  minute,"  replied  the 
financier,  "if  in  doubt,  use  the  cable.  Good  luck." 

The  elder  grasped  the  younger  man  warmly  by 
the  hand,  and  looked  him  straight  in  the  face. 

"If  I  had  been  given  a  son,  Philip,"  he  said  "I 
should  have  wished  him  to  be  like  you.  Good-by, 
and  God  bless  you." 

An  instant  later  and  the  magnate  was  gone. 
When  Philip  had  collected  his  scattered  wits  suf 
ficiently  to  rush  to  the  window,  he  saw  the  auto 
car  turning  a  distant  corner.  A  wild  desire  to  give 
chase  immediately  came  over  him,  followed  by  the 
conviction  that  if  he  were  to  lay  in  wait  at  the 
steamer  there  would  be  no  time  there  for  explana 
tions.  No,  the  fates  had  meant  him  to  be  happy 
this  day  and  for  many  days ;  he  would  not  dispute 
their  will. 

Mechanically  he  turned  over  the  letters  which  he 
still  held  in  his  hand.  The  uppermost  was  a  thin 
envelope  addressed  to  him.  He  opened  it,  took 
out  the  single  sheet  of  letter  paper  and  read,  after 
the  formal  address : 

146 


A  BOLT  FROM  THE  BLUE 

"Dear  Mr.  Craig:— 

"On  and  after  this  date  you  will  be  gen 
eral  executive  manager  of  the  John  P.  Norton 
Company,  and  will  transact  all  business  as  I  would 
do  were  I  on  the  scene.  Herewith  is  power  of  at 
torney.  Information  of  your  new  position  and 
authority  has  been  conveyed  to  all  concerned. 
"Very  truly  yours, 

"John  P.  Norton." 

This,  then,  was  the  new  trust,  this  the  underly 
ing  motive  of  Norton's  strange  words.  He 
realized  the  enormous  change  in  his  fortunes,  but 
he  felt  that  he  had  arrived  at  a  mental  impasse,  a 
point  at  which  he  must  stop  and  think,  must  get 
into  the  open  and  see  the  sunshine.  Mechanically 
he  picked  up  the  letter  he  had  written  a  half  hour 
before  and  looked  at  the  superscription. 

"Helen,"  he  murmured,  and  never  had  the  name 
been  so  sweet  on  his  lips,  "you  are  the  first  to 
whom  I  shall  tell  the  news." 

And  within  a  few  minutes  he  was  speeding 
toward  the  statelv  home  of  the  Nortons. 


147 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN. 

THE  rapid  ride  served  to  clear  Philip's  mental 
murkiness  in  a  great  degree,  as  the  swift  in 
rush  of  a  stream  of  water  might  cleanse  a 
woodland  pool.  The  further  he  got  from  the 
scene  of  his  recent  perturbation,  the  clearer  be 
came  his  perspective  and  he  saw  himself  at  last  in 
his  true  relation  with  the  rest  of  the  world,  to 
Helen  especially. 

So  his  projected  dash  to  the  house  of  his  lady 
love  began  to  assume  too  much  the  savor  of 
mediaeval  chivalry.  This  descent  upon  her  at 
high  noon  was  something  that  even  the  impetu 
osity  of  love  did  not  demand.  To  strengthen  the 
conviction  came  the  recollection  that  this  was  one 
of  Helen's  days  for  investigating  prospective  cases 
for  Bentley-on-Hudson ;  she  would  probably  have 
left  home  already.  What  to  do,  then?  He  could 
not  go  back  to  the  office ;  the  very  thought  seemed 
stifling. 

He  dismissed  his  driver,  and  getting  out,  strode 
along  through  the  magnificent  concentric  ring  of 
estates  surrounding  John  Norton's  castle.  For 
miles  he  walked,  paying  little  heed  to  the  artificial 
beauty  of  the  resort  of  wealth,  knowing  only  that 
the  sun  was  shining  brightly  and  that  the  wind  was 
breathing  warm  fragrance  into  his  nostrils.  On 
and  on  he  went,  until  weariness  began  to  make 

148 


THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN 

itself  felt,  and  he  suddenly  remembered  that  he 
had  had  no  breakfast. 

Ten  minutes  later  he  was  at  one  of  Christoforo's 
faultless  tables,  and  just  beginning  the  disposal  of 
his  soup,  when  he  heard  a  familiar  voice. 

"Hello,  Craig;  you  here?" 

It  was  scarcely  necessary  for  him  to  look  up  to 
know  that  Andrew  Haven  was  standing  by  his 
side,  timid,  apologetic  and  apparently  ill  at  ease, 
as  ever.  He  would  have  preferred  almost  any 
other  company,  but  there  was  no  escape. 

"I — I'm  not  intruding,  if  I  sit  with  you?"  ven 
tured  the  little  man. 

"Oh,  no." 

Haven  slowly  sank  into  his  chair,  then  wiped 
his  lips  nervously  with  a  napkin.  He  fixed  his 
gaze  on  Craig  through  his  large,  round  spectacles, 
till  the  younger  man  wondered  if  he  had  not  some 
special  sort  of  vision  that  could  penetrate  the  se 
crets  of  the  mind.  When  he  found  his  look  re 
turned,  Haven  flushed  and  pretended  to  drink 
some  water. 

"I'm  glad  to  meet  you,  Craig,"  he  said  in  his 
plaintive  fashion,  "I  want  to  congratulate  you. 
No  offense,  I  hope." 

"On  what,  Mr.  Haven?" 

A  look  of  amused  incredulity  came  into  the  oth 
er's  little  eyes.  He  even  laughed  decorously. 

"Upon  what?  Dear  me — beg  pardon,  I'm  rude, 
perhaps — but  really  it  was  funny  to  hear  you  ask 
why  you  were  to  be  congratulated.  Your  discre 
tion  is  most  commendable,  but  the  news  of  your 
advancement  was  the  talk  of  the  Street  this  morn 
ing1.  It  was  officially  announced  by  the  exchange 


149 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

at  noon,  together  with  the  fact  that  Norton  had 
gone  to  Europe." 

For  the  first  time  Philip  fully  realized  the  mag 
nitude  of  fortune's  loan  to  him — he  would  not  con 
sider  it  a  gift,  since  he  had  not  yet  perfected  his 
title  by  achievement.  But  that  his  name  should 
be  officially  coupled  with  that  of  John  P.  Norton 
in  the  greatest  money  mart  of  the  world  was  a  stu 
pendous  thing.  It  threw  about  him  the  protecting 
regis  of  millions  and  made  of  him  a  man  whose 
power  and  influence  might  be  beyond  computing. 
Meantime  Haven  was  dribbling  on. 

"I  knew  it  before,  of  course,  if  you  will  allow  me 
to  say  so.  Norton  has  few  secrets  from  me — or, 
at  least,  so  I  imagine.  He  told  me  yesterday. 
And  what  a  prodigious  salary !" 

"Indeed." 

"You  don't  think  so?    You  amaze  me." 

"I  didn't  say  so.  In  fact,  I  have  no  idea  what  it 
is.  You  really  must  excuse  me,  Mr.  Haven,  for  I 
have  a  train  to  catch." 

He  called  for  his  bill,  paid  it  and  strode  out, 
leaving  Haven  muttering  apologies  and  trying  to 
catalogue  this  strange  young  man  in  the  archives 
of  his  active  brain. 

In  one  brief  moment  Philip  decided  where  his 
first  duty  lay.  He  would  go  to  the  Norton  house 
after  all,  but  to  see  Helen's  mother,  tell  her  of  his 
love  for  her  daughter  and  abide  by  her  advice. 
To  tell  the  truth,  he  had  little  dread  of  making  her 
his  confidant,  for  he  knew  her  sweet  kindliness  of 
disposition  and  her  old-fashioned  ideas  on  love 
and  marriage. 

Mrs.  Norton  was  at  home  and  received  him  with 
her  gentle  cordiality. 


THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN 

"Pray  consider  me  quite  at  your  disposal,  Mr. 
Craig,"  she  said  in  reply  to  his  request  for  a  few 
moment's  conversation  of  a  personal  nature.  "We 
shall  expect  to  see  more  of  you,  now  that  Mr. 
Norton  has  gone  away  and  left  his  business  in 
your  charge." 

She  knew,  then,  thought  Philip.  But  why 
should  she  not? 

"I  should  have  thought  that  you  would  accom 
pany  him,"  he  said,  still  dealing  in  the  common 
places.  He  was  not  quite  ready  for  the  real 
plunge. 

"Oh,  dear,  no,"  she  replied,  "the  great  lakes 
are  as  near  as  I  have  been  to  a  sea  voyage.  Once 
was  enough.  I  say  with  Herbert,  'Praise  the  sea, 
but  keep  on  the  land.'  The  ocean  is  almost  the 
only  thing  that  has  power  to  part  me  from  my 
husband.  Besides,  Helen  needed  me." 

The  mention  of  the  dear  name  was  enough. 
Without  more  ado  he  opened  the  door  of  his  heart 
and  let  his  hopes  and  desires  come  trooping  out. 
He  told  his  story  in  simple  and  honest  fashion 
which  he  feared  was  blundering  enough,  but  which 
the  sympathetic  woman  found  manly  and  convinc 
ing.  But  alas  for  the  secrets  of  lovers;  how  thin 
and  futile  the  disguise  he  immediately  found  out. 

"I  will  confess,  Mr.  Craig,"  she  said  with  an 
indulgent  smile,  "that  I  have  had  some  notion  of 
this.  No,  Helen  has  said  nothing,  but  there  are 
signs,  you  know,  to  such  acute  observers  as 
mothers.  You  say  you  could  not  speak  to  Mr. 
Norton  ?" 

Craig  nodded  assent. 

"Perhaps  it  is  just  as  well.  I  know  that  he  re 
gards  you  highly:  you  have  already  had  proof  of 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

that.  In  any  event,  if  you  love  Helen,  and  she 
you,  I  cannot  think  that  John  Norton  would  do 
anything  different  from  what  I  do:  wish  you  as 
happy  a  life  together  as  he  and  I  have  had." 

She  held  out  both  her  hands  to  him  with  a  most 
charming  air  of  welcome.  Obeying  a  sudden  im 
pulse,  he  stooped  and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead. 
Her  eyes  met  his  with  a  merry  twinkle. 

"Will  you  do  that  when  I  am  your  mother-in- 
law?"  she  asked. 

He  protested  fervently  that  thus  it  would  ever 
be,  but  she  held  up  a  warning  finger. 

"Be  careful.  Don't  promise  too  much.  You 
may  regret  it.  But  it  is  not  an  old  woman  you 
came  to  see.  Had  I  not  better  send  for  Helen? 
She  has  just  returned  from  her  mercy-trip,  as  I  call 
it." 

The  rest  of  the  afternoon  and  dinner,  at  which 
he  was  the  guest  of  honor,  passed  in  the  miracu 
lously  rapid  fashion  of  happy  hours.  For  the  first 
time  in  all  his  life  Philip  opened  the  gates  of  his 
reserve,  and  talked  of  himself,  of  his  boyish  dreams 
and  struggles,  of  his  sacrifices  for  an  education, 
of  his  final  foothold  on  a  career  and  of  his  ambi 
tions  for  the  days  to  come.  If  he  was  eloquent 
in  the  recital,  what  wonder  when  a  pair  of  dewy 
eyes  matched  struggle  with  sympathy  and  victory 
with  triumphant  approval.  And  the  moment  of 
parting  when  Mrs.  Norton  generously  betook  her 
self  away — the  kiss — the  hand-pressure !  All  these 
things  seemed  to  Craig  the  beautiful  and  fitting 
close  of  a  day  of  wonder. 

The  next  morning  he  was  at  his  desk  early, 
ready  to  grapple  with  the  great  duties  before  him. 
He  began  by  opening  the  envelopes  containing  his 

152 


THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN 

instructions  in  order  to  familiarize  himself  with 
the  general  plan  of  campaign,  and  found  type 
written  memoranda  of  the  status  of  certain  trans 
actions.  These  he  did  not  read  in  full,  preferring 
to  deal  with  each  matter  as  it  should  come  before 
him  from  the  man  having  it  in  special  charge; 
this  was  Norton's  invariable  method.  One  folded 
sheet  inscribed  "Pneumatic  Engine  Mill,  Andrew 
Haven,"  he  did  not  even  open. 

A  sheet  backed  "Office  details"  appeared  more 
urgent,  and  he  read  it  carefully.  It  advised  one 
or  two  changes  in  the  allotment  of  work,  if  Craig, 
on  investigation,  should  deem  them  advisable. 
The  closing  paragraph  was  as  follows : — 

"The  salary  of  Philip  Craig,  executive 
manager  of  the  John  P.  Norton  Com 
pany,  shall  be  $100,000  per  annum,  and 
said  Craig  shall  transfer  monthly  to  his 
personal  account  one  per  cent,  of  all 
profits  accruing  to  the  concern." 

The  piece  of  paper  fell  from  his  hand  and  flut 
tered  to  the  floor. 

"This,  then,  was  what  Haven  meant,"  he  mut 
tered.  "It  is  almost  beyond  belief.  .  .  .  Come, 
come,  Philip,  old  chap,  he  evidently  thought  you 
were  worth  it.  Brace  up,  and  try  to  earn  some  of 
it,  at  any  rate." 

After  this  there  was  no  more  hesitation  or  weak 
ness.  Craig  felt  again  the  thrilling  tide  of  battle 
and  he  went  at  the  business  of  the  day  with  a 
quickness  of  decision  and  a  firmness  of  grasp  that 
gave  the  gossips  food  for  digestion,  and  sent  a  ru 
mor  into  the  "Street"  that  it  wouldn't  be  safe  to 

153 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

try  any  games  with  "John  Peter's"  interests  even 
if  that  financial  scourge  was  away. 

One  of  Philip's  callers  was  a  short,  stout  man, 
who  might  have  been  anything  from  a  parson  to 
a  butcher  so  far  as  personal  appearance  went. 

"I  am  Smithson,  sir,"  the  man  announced.  "Mr. 
Norton  told  me  that  in  his  absence  I  was  to  report 
to  you." 

"Very  well,  sir.  What  is  the  nature  of  your  re 
port.  What  is  it  about?" 

"About  Count  Sandstrom,  sir." 

"Sandstrom?  Please  explain.  I've  not  had 
time  to  look  into  all  these  matters."  And  he  se 
lected  a  sheet  endorsed  "Sandstrom,"  and  ran  his 
eye  over  it. 

"I  am  engaged  to  keep  an  eye  on  him  and  see 
that  he  doesn't  leave  the  country,"  murmured  the 
stout  man. 

"Ah,  a  detective,  I  presume." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  if  he  does  leave?" 

"I  am  to  report  to  you  at  once." 

"I  see.  I  understand  the  situation  by  this  pa 
per.  Well,  what  have  you  to  say?" 

"He  has  no  intention  of  going  right  away,  for  he 
has  given  out  invitations  for  a  lawn  party  August 
3oth." 

"But  couldn't  that  be  what  you  detectives,  I  be 
lieve,  call  a  blind? 

"It  might  be,  sir." 

"Well,  keep  on  watch.  Report  to  me  weekly  by 
wire.  If  anything  new  occurs,  come  at  once. 
Good  morning." 

"A  sharp  customer.  He'll  stand  no  fooling," 
thought  Smithson,  as  he  bowed  himself  out. 

154 


THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN 

"M'm,"  mused  Philip,  as  he  again  read  the  Sand- 
strom  document,  "so  it  was  to  investigate  the 
Count's  connections  and  the  methods  and  alliances 
of  his  house  that  I  was  to  have  gone  abroad,  and 
it  is  for  this  that  Norton  has  gone.  Something  of 
magnitude  is  in  prospect,  and  Mr.  Norton  feels 
that  he  must  make  sure  of  his  ground." 

Not  long  after  Haven  put  in  an  appearance. 
He  professed  himself  as  delighted  to  be  privileged 
to  do  business  with  Mr.  Craig,  but  Mr.  Craig  was 
not  particularly  impressed  by  this  display  of  grat 
itude.  In  fact,  he  cut  him  short. 

"Well,  then,  we  had  best  proceed  at  once  to  the 
business." 

Haven's  face  wore  an  injured  look,  but  he  went 
on  without  comment. 

"It's  about  the  Pneumatic  Engine  Mills.  You 
have  some  of  my  reports  in  your  hand,  I  see,  and 
are  doubtless  familiar  with  the  case.  The  works 
are  nearly  completed,  but  ground  cannot  be 
broken  for  the  designing-room  until  we  have  the 
rest  of  the  land.  .  .  .  What's  the  matter,  Mr. 
Craig?  Are  you  ill?" 

His  sharp  little  eyes,  that  never  missed  a  detail 
in  another  man's  countenance,  had  noted  that 
Philip  turned  pale  while  reading  one  of  the  docu 
ments. 

"It  is  nothing.  Go  on,"  said  the  executive 
manager. 

"Well,  this  one  man  has  refused  every  offer  we 
have  made  through  Holloway.  Yesterday  we 
tried  threats,  but  Holloway  says  he  knows  the  law, 
and  that  a  more  stubborn  mule  never  existed. 
Mr.  Norton's  instructions  were  to  buy,  if  money 

155 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

would  do  it,  but  if  Craig  remained  obstinate — by 
the  by,  curious  coincidence  of  names,  isn't  it?" 

"It  is.    Proceed." 

"If  Craig  remained  obstinate  we  were  to  resort 
to  the  last  extremity." 

"And  that  is?"  queried  Philip,  striving  to  the 
utmost  to  mask  his  emotions  before  this  cunning 
schemer. 

"We  have  bonded  a  strip  of  land  125  feet  wide 
leading  from  opposite  his  cottage  to  the  state 
highway.  We  own  enough  beyond  the  site  of  our 
works  to  make  a  boulevard  from  the  highway  to 
the  water.  Craig's  land,  you  see,  will  be  right  in 
the  way.  Sad,  isn't  it?" 

"Go  on  Avith  your  report,"  said  Philip,  sternly. 

"Now,  then,  the  plan  is  to  give  the  land  to  the 
state.  If  Craig  still  refuses  to  sell,  his  property 
could  be  seized  under  the  right  of  eminent  do 
main." 

"Can  this  be  done?" 

"The  proper  state  officials  have  given  us  their 
assurances  that  it  will  be." 

"At  a  price,  I  presume." 

"Well,  not  exactly  that,  but  we  do  hold  out 
certain  reciprocal  advantages." 

Philip  rapidly  wrote  some  figures  on  a  bit  of 
paper. 

"I  see  that  this  will  cost  about  $420,000,"  said 
he,  not  including  the  'reciprocal  advantages'  to  the 
state  officials.  What  do  we  get  in  return?" 

"Craig's  land." 

"Which  is  worth?" 

"Five  thousand  dollars,  more  or  less." 

"Then  we  lose—" 

"It  is  not  a  question  of  loss,  sir.  It  has  gone 
156 


THE  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN 

beyond  that.  John  Norton  is  not  accustomed  to 
being  thwarted,  and  he — " 

"Prefers  losing  money  to  losing  his  own  way?" 

"Precisely,  Mr.  Craig." 

"Well,  we  will  let  the  matter  rest." 

"But  Mr.  Norton—" 

"Is  not  here.  Till  he  returns  I  am  in  authority. 
You  wall  take  no  further  steps  in  the  matter. 
Good  morning,  Mr.  Haven." 

The  little  man  left  the  office  feeling  that  his 
opportunities  for  service  to  the  house  of  Norton 
would  be  very  seriously  crippled  by  the  presence 
in  power  of  this  keen  and  conscientious  deputy. 
He  bitterly  resented  the  peremptory  tone  of 
Craig's  instructions  and  vowed  that  he  would  not 
forgive  the  injury  until  its  memory  was  blotted 
out  by  some  greater  harm  in  return.  For  there 
was  a  bit  of  the  Indian  in  Haven,  as  well  as  con 
siderable  of  the  reptile. 


157 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

A    COMMERCIAL    TRAGEDY. 

ONE  goal  stood  forth  before  Philip  Craig's 
mind  during  all  the  remainder  of  the  busi 
ness  day — his  father's  house.  As  soon, 
therefore,  as  he  could  lift  his  hand  from  the  lever 
he  made  his  way  to  the  region  of  grime  and  noise 
where  the  cottage  still  stood  in  mute  defiance  of 
its  enemies.  No  signs  of  life  were  to  be  seen. 

Philip  raised  the  ancient  brass  knocker  again 
and  again  without  arousing  anything  more  tangi 
ble  than  dismal  echoes.  He  was  on  the  point  of 
descending  the  steps  when  he  heard  the  soft 
shuffling  of  feet  within  and  saw  the  door  cau 
tiously  opened  a  mere  crack ;  across  the  dark  slit 
of  space  he  noted  the  links  of  a  strong  chain. 

"Who's  there?  What's  wanted?"  came  forth 
the  querulous  voice  of  an  old  woman,  Angus 
Craig's  deaf  day-servant. 

"It's  I— Philip  Craig." 

"Well,  he  ain't  at  home,"  piped  the  dame,  pre 
paring  to  draw  the  chain  closer. 

"I  am  Philip— Philip  Craig— Philip,"  shouted 
the  young  man. 

The  chain  rattled  down  and  the  door  swung 
open. 

"Oh,  Master  Philip,  is  it?  You'll  have  to  par 
don  me,  sir,  but  Mr.  Craig  gave  me  strict  orders 
not  to  let  a  living  soul  I  didn't  know  into  the 

158 


A   COMMERCIAL   TRAGEDY 

house,  nor  take  in  any  messages  nor  papers  of  any 
sort.  Why,  I  even  make  the  grocer's  boy  leave 
his  provisions  on  the  doorstep." 

Philip  laughed  heartily.  "Dad's  in  a  regular 
state  of  siege,"  he  exclaimed.  "Well,  he'll  soon 
be  out  of  fear." 

He  went  into  the  quaint  little  sitting  room, 
comfortable  enough,  despite  its  angularities  and 
oddities  of  furnishings.  He  noted  that  his 
mother's  favorite  rocker  had  been  brought  down 
stairs,  and  that  a  faded  photograph  of  her,  framed 
in  beautifully  carved  ebony,  was  hanging  over  the 
fireplace.  In  a  pot  on  the  red-covered  table  was 
growing  a  slip  from  a  rose-bush — Philip  could 
guess  its  origin  and  its  purpose. 

"Poor  old  fellow,"  he  thought,  "he  is  growing 
that  slip  from  my  mother's  rose-bush,  so  that,  in 
case  the  worst  comes,  he  can  carry  it  away  with 
him." 

As  he  sat  there  in  the  twilight  he  began  to 
understand  and  appreciate  his  father's  love  for  the 
place  and  his  fierce  determination  not  to  leave  it. 
After  all,  it  was  home,  the  spot  of  the  hearthstone, 
the  haven  of  refuge  from  the  stress  of  life.  He  felt 
his  own  lack  of  just  such  influences,  now  so  soon 
to  be  supplied  him,  and  his  heart  warmed  to  his 
father  even  as  it  glowed  with  love  for  Helen. 

Angus'  return  was  not  long  delayed.  He  was 
in  one  of  his  most  ungracious  moods,  and  returned 
his  son's  greeting  gruffly. 

"Weel,  Philip,  I  didna  expect  ye  wad  veesit  me 
sae  soon.  How  could  ye  leave  ye'er  fine  friends?" 

"Come  now,  father,"  returned  Philip,  kindly, 
"you  know  I'd  be  here  a  great  deal  more  if  I  be 
lieved  my  visits  were  pleasing  to  you." 

159 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Imph." 

"And  as  for  my  fine  friends,  they  certainly  have 
no  influence  in  preventing  me  from  doing  my 
duty." 

"Imph.  .  .  .  Weel,  what  is't  ye  want,  lad?  I 
canna  talk  lang  wi'  ye  the  nicht.  Some  friends  o' 
mine,  who  are  nae  friends  o'  yours,  are  coomin'  on 
important  business.  Besides,  I'm  a  bit  fashed  the 
day." 

The  old  man  dropped  wearily  into  a  chair,  and 
pressed  his  hands  to  his  eyes.  In  truth,  he  seemed 
like  one  who  had  been  buffeted  by  fate  until  the 
spirit  had  gone  from  him. 

"What's  the  trouble?"  asked  the  son. 

"Naething  that  should  bother  me,  I  dare  say; 
a  plate  is  missing  again." 

Philip  knew  what  that  meant.  Once  before  his 
father  had  spent  several  wretched  days  over  the 
disappearance  of  a  bank-note  plate  from  the  estab 
lishment  where  he  worked.  Even  though  there 
was  no  question  of  his  integrity,  he  knew  that  in 
such  a  case  suspicion  must  hover  over  good  and 
bad  alike.  That  plate  had  been  found  under  some 
rubbish  in  the  yard;  whether  it  had  been  carried 
there  by  accident  or  hidden  by  intending  forgers 
was  never  known. 

"Probably  it  will  turn  up  like  the  other  one," 
suggested  Philip. 

"Verra  like,  verra  like.  But  it's  terrible  tae  be 
spied  upon  and  treated  like  a  thief  when  ye've 
done  nae  wrang.  Money's  nae  the  root  o'  evil, 
Philip,  it's  evil's  verra  self.  I  sometimes  think  I 
do  the  deil's  work  when  I  scrape  a  tool  into  a 
note-plate.  But  a  body  maun  live." 

Philip  could  scarce  repress  a  smile.  To  hear 
1 60 


A   COMMERCIAL   TRAGEDY 

this  man,  accounted  one  of  the  finest  engravers  of 
the  country,  revile  the  profession  he  loved  was 
little  short  of  ludicrous.  But  he  was  sympathetic, 
and  presently  the  talk  drifted  to  other  things. 

"Ye  see  I'm  still  here,  lad,"  at  last  said  Angus, 
with  a  gleam  of  triumph  in  his  faded  eyes. 
"They've  nae  turned  the  auld  mon  oot  yet." 

"No,  father,  and  that's  what  I've  come  to  see 
you  about." 

The  old  man's  wrath  flamed  up  from  its  bed  of 
suspicion  in  an  instant.  He  saw  in  his  own  son 
an  embodiment  of  the  rapacity  and  relentlessness 
of  the  money  power.  He  did  not  hold  the  young 
man  to  blame,  especially,  regarding  him  rather  as 
a  helpless  creature  of  environment.  His  hatred 
was  for  the  system. 

"Ye'll  be  tellin'  me  that  ye've  joined  wi'  these 
deils  and  made  common  cause  wi'  'em  tae  drive 
me  oot,"  he  sputtered. 

Philip  grew  angry  in  turn. 

"Father— I- 

"Weel,  weel,  I  mean  nae  harm,"  said  Angus,  in 
a  more  conciliatory  tone. 

"I  came  to  tell  you,"  resumed  the  son,  "that 
you  need  have  no  fear.  I  have  the  best  of  reasons 
for  saying  that  you  can  keep  this  house  as  long  as 
I  choose." 

"Keep  it?"  cried  Angus,  excitedly,  "of  coorse 
I  can.  I  kenned  that  lang  ago.  They'll  need  some 
Satan's  trick  tae  get  me  oot,  an'  I'm  as  canny  as 
they  are." 

It  was  impossible  for  Philip  to  explain  the  situa 
tion,  for  he  knew  that  his  father  would  forever 
hold  him  as  an  accomplice  with  his  enemies,  no 

161 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

matter  what  his  version.  He  said  no  more  on  the 
subject,  and  soon  after  took  his  leave. 

"Gude  nicht,  Philip,"  was  his  father's  parting 
shot.  "When  ye  tire  o'  ye'er  frien's  in  Mammon, 
coom  back  tae  us  again." 

Next  day  the  full  tide  of  promoters,  schemers, 
inventors,  beggars,  financial  giants  and  commer 
cial  pygmies  swept  in  upon  Craig  and  tested  his 
powers  of  discernment  to  the  utmost.  He  had 
given  orders  that  practically  all  the  men  who 
called  should  be  admitted  to  his  presence ;  for  one 
day,  at  least,  he  wanted  to  receive  his  impressions 
of  this  part  of  his  work  at  first  hand.  Afterward 
he  would  rely  on  the  filtration  of  office-boys, 
clerks,  and  private  secretary. 

Philip  pricked  many  a  bubble  during  the  day, 
exposed  the  worthlessness  of  many  a  loud-sound 
ing  scheme  and  shunted  off  once  and  for  all  the 
importunities  of  professional  charity  manipulators. 
He  also  made  some  valuable  alliances  and  began 
plans  of  immense  advantage  to  his  house.  He  sat 
at  his  desk  cool  and  imperturbable,  with  some 
thing  of  Norton's  sang-froid,  yet  with  a  mellower 
humanity  to  temper  it  and  a  more  genial  sense  of 
humor  to  cheer  himself.  He  took  his  work  seri 
ously,  to  be  sure,  but  not  morbidly  so.  In  short, 
he  was  an  able  regent  on  the  Norton  throne,  and 
he  impressed  everyone,  and,  through  everyone,  the 
"Street,"  with  the  sense  that  a  keen,  hard-headed, 
far-seeing  young  man  was  in  power. 

He  went  to  luncheon  at  a  famous  restaurant 
much  affected  by  brokers  and  financiers.  Here 
was  a  severer  test,  for  he  knew  that  men  nudged 
one  another  and  followed  him  with  keenly  critical 
or  envious  eyes  as  he  walked  through  the  throng 

162 


A   COMMERCIAL   TRAGEDY 

to  his  table,  the  place  always  reserved  for  John 
Norton.  It  is  easy  to  be  unperturbed;  to  appear 
so,  however,  is  another  matter.  The  heart  may  be 
of  iron,  while  the  face  is  of  plastic  putty  impressed 
by  emotions  scarcely  more  than  skin  deep. 

But  on  the  whole  the  young  man  received  his 
many  congratulations  in  the  right  spirit  and  made 
friends  by  his  good  common-sense  and  likable 
ways. 

Just  after  luncheon  a  card  bearing  the  legend 
"Mr.  Hastings"  was  brought  in  to  him. 

"What  Hastings?"  he  asked  the  bearer. 

"He  was  a  clerk  here,  sir,  but  for  some  months 
he  has  been  doing  outside  work,  I  believe." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  remember.    Show  him  in." 

Hastings  was  a  large,  florid  man,  with  immense 
side-whiskers  and  a  bald  head  as  red  as  the  shell  of 
a  boiled  lobster.  He  \vas  in  a  state  of  much  ex 
citement,  it  seemed,  for  he  continually  mopped  his 
forehead  with  a  large  handkerchief. 

"Take  a  chair,  Mr.  Hastings,"  said  Philip. 
"You  are  evidently,  may  1  say — troubled?" 

"Yes,  sir,  I  am  troubled.  I  didn't  learn  of  Mr. 
Norton's  absence  until  to-day,  and  it  was  to  him 
I  was  to  make  my  report." 

"Let's  see,  it  was  about  a  hay  and  grain  firm, 
wasn't  it?" 

"Yes,  the  Jamesons." 

"You  were  to  force  them  to  enter  the  Norton- 
Davies  syndicate,  I  believe." 

"Yes,  sir;  that's  it." 

"Well,  in  Mr.  Norton's  absence  I  am  Mr.  Nor 
ton.  You  can  report  to  me  freely.  Have  you 
succeeded?" 

Great  beads  of  perspiration  stood  on  Hastings' 
163 


rosy  forehead,  and  he  stammered  as  he  replied: — 

"Succeeded?    W-well,  I  think  I  m-may  say  so." 

Philip  looked  at  the  man  with  impatient  curi 
osity.  Was  this  shaken,  nervous  fellow  the  sort 
of  agent  John  Norton  was  willing  to  employ.  He 
wondered  what  sort  of  reception  the  chief  himself 
would  give  him. 

"Well,  that  must  be  satisfactory  to  you,"  he 
said.  "It  has  been  a  long  struggle;  how  did  it 
end?" 

"Oliver  Jameson  shot  himself  last  night,  and  his 
firm  was  declared  insolvent  this  morning." 

Philip  felt  as  if  someone  had  dealt  him  a  swift, 
stinging  blow  on  the  head,  and  for  a  moment  his 
senses  did  not  grasp  the  full  meaning  of  the  an 
nouncement.  Then  in  the  clearing  mist  he  saw 
the  dead  body  of  the  wretched  man  slain  by  the 
inexorable  demands  of  a  commercial  tragedy.  He 
could  realize  how  the  two  brothers,  grown  old  in 
the  conduct  of  their  business  and  proud  of  their 
independence,  had  struggled  on  against  the  resist 
less  force  of  combined  capital,  until,  at  last,  with 
ruin  knocking  at  their  gates,  one  of  them,  in  the 
insanity  of  despair,  had  turned  his  hand  against 
himself.  It  was  pitiful,  and  so  pitifully  needless. 

Hastings'  story  of  the  details  was  brief  and  he 
was  dismissed  to  complete  the  affairs  of  the  enter 
prise  and  to  take  a  brief  vacation  before  he  should 
return  to  his  regular  duties.  As  he  was  about  to 
depart  Philip  said  : — 

"Let  me  see,  Mr.  Hastings,  were  you  not  to 
receive  a  bonus  for  this  work  ?" 

"Indeed,  sir,  I  couldn't  take  a  cent  of  it — not  a 
cent,"  he  said  with  something  like  a  shudder.  "It 

164 


A   COMMERCIAL   TRAGEDY 

would  be  like  blood-money.  Besides,  the  time  for 
the  bonus  has  expired." 

"Very  well,  sir,"  returned  Philip,  with  a  growing 
respect  for  the  man.  "You  may  report  for  duty  in 
the  office  in  three  weeks." 

Craig  pondered  long  over  the  tragedy  of  the 
Jamesons,  and  at  last  his  course  seemed  clear. 
He  wrote  a  brief  anonymous  letter  of  sympathy  to 
John  Jameson  and  enclosed  in  it  a  cashier's  check 
for  a  large  sum  obtained  from  a  neighboring  bank 
in  exchange  for  a  personal  check  drawn  by  Philip 
himself. 

"The  enclosed  check,"  said  the  closing  words  of 
the  note,  "is  sent  by  one  who  appreciates  a  brave 
struggle  against  a  great  wrong.  It  cannot  recall 
the  dead,  but  it  can  rehabilitate  the  firm  he  loved 
into  what  men  call  'business  honor.'  Do  not 
refuse  to  employ  this  money,  for  he  who  sends  it 
has  no  sympathy  with  a  code  of  business  ethics 
that  permits  of  brutal  coercion." 

This  was  despatched  by  a  trusted  messenger 
with  instructions  to  leave  it  at  the  Jameson  house 
without  comment. 

But  even  the  sense  of  duty  performed  did  not 
lift  the  burden  from  Philip's  mind,  as  he  had 
hoped.  Strive  as  he  might  he  could  not  rid  him 
self  of  the  picture  of  that  desolated  home  and  the 
man  who  was  mourning  over  a  brother  and  a  dis 
graced  firm. 

The  similarity  of  the  methods  employed  against 
the  Jamesons  and  his  father  came  strongly  to  his 
thoughts.  He  had  felt  no  compunction  about 
stopping  the  proceedings  against  Angus,  and  in 
the  present  instance  he  was  sure  that  John  Norton 
would  deeplv  regret  the  issue.  But  whether  or 

'65 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

no,  of  one  thing  he  was  firmly  convinced:  that 
such  dealings  were  indefensible  by  any  standard 
of  morality. 

The  trouble  was,  he  reasoned,  that  men  who 
engage  in  these  business  schemes  do  not  realize 
the  end.  They  think  merely  of  their  own  advan 
tages  and  not  of  the  results  to  others.  They  are 
like  gamblers  whose  passion  for  the  stakes  of  the 
game  blinds  them  to  the  realization  of  what  loss 
means  to  their  adversaries.  It  was  even  worse  in 
the  case  of  the  Jamesons,  for  they  had  found  the 
contest  forced  upon  them,  and  had  staked  their  all 
through  the  sheer  necessity  of  surviving. 

The  impression  made  upon  him  by  the  tragedy 
was  neither  temporary  nor  sentimental.  It  had 
immense  practical  bearing  upon  certain  half-fin 
ished  schemes  that  were  presented  to  him  within 
the  next  two  or  three  days  by  men  designated  by 
Norton  long  before  his  departure  for  Europe. 
Many  of  these  seemed  to  Philip  to  have  but  one 
legitimate  conclusion :  the  ruin  of  men  and  firms 
against  which  they  were  directed.  These  he 
crushed  with  relentless  hand,  either  by  modifying 
the  plans  or  ordering  their  complete  abandon 
ment. 

Nor  did  he  feel  that  he  was  in  the  least  unfaith 
ful  to  his  trust,  for  from  what  he  had  experienced 
of  John  Norton's  kindness  of  heart  to  himself  and 
others,  he  was  assured  that  the  truth  need  only  to 
be  presented  clearly  to  make  his  chief  see  things 
as  he  saw  them. 


1 66 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

AT    THE    VAN    RENSSALAER    LOW'S. 

THE  weeks  flew  by  for  Philip  Craig,  and  life 
seemed  a  very  cheerful  and  pleasant  thing 
indeed.  His  duties  were  many  and  often 
difficult,  but  he  caught  their  swing  admirably,  and, 
like  a  sensible  young  man,  felt  great  satisfaction  in 
the  sense  of  power.  He  saw  Helen  often,  and  in 
the  delightful  role  of  acknowledged  lover.  Alto 
gether  he  counted  this  season  the  happiest  of  his 
life.  And  it  seemed  likely  to  continue  for  some 
time,  for  although  he  had  received  several  cable 
messages  from  Norton,  there  was  nothing  said  of 
the  probable  date  of  his  return. 

One  morning  in  late  August  he  was  somewhat 
surprised  to  receive  from  Mrs.  Van  Renssalaer 
Cruger  Low  an  elaborately  engraved  invitation  to 
a  "Sherwood  Forest  Fete,  to  be  Given  in  Behalf 
of  Bentley-on-Hudson,  at  Low  Manor  on  the 
Evening  of  September  Two." 

He  turned  the  card  over  curiously  and  won 
dered  why  he  should  have  been  chosen  for  social 
honors  by  one  of  the  proudest  families  in  New 
York.  He  had  met  Mr.  Low,  to  be  sure,  at  a 
small  dinner  given  by  Mrs.  Norton,  and  although 
he  had  thought  vaguely  that  the  aristocrat  had 
liked  him,  he  was  not  prepared  for  any  further 
manifestation  on  his  part. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  Low,  besides 
167 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

being  attracted  by  the  young  man,  had  recognized 
him  as  a  great  potentiality  in  the  finances  of  the 
city.  Then,  too,  as  the  regent  of  John  Peter 
Norton,  he  was  a  commanding  figure  and  one  well 
worth  cultivating.  So  he  determined  to  invite 
Philip  to  the  forthcoming  function,  and  asked  his 
wife  to  send  him  a  card. 

That  lady  demurred.  "Who  is  this  Mr.  Craig?" 
she  asked,  anxiously,  "has  he  any  family?  I  never 
heard  of  them.'' 

"You  surprise  me,  my  dear,"  was  the  reply. 
"Very  distinguished  Scotch  ancestry — Craigs  of 
Loch  Levin;  castles,  deer-parks  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing,  you  know,"  he  said,  with  a  smile  behind 
his  newspaper. 

"Oh,  well,  if  that's  the  case,  of  course  we  must 
have  him." 

And  so  it  happened  that  Philip  found  himself 
at  Low  Manor  on  the  specified  evening.  He 
rubbed  his  eyes  at  the  strange  sight  presented  as 
he  stepped  from  his  carriage.  The  great  lawn  in 
front  of  the  Low  mansion  had  entirely  vanished, 
and  in  its  place  was  a  thick  forest  of  magnificent 
oaks  implanted  during  a  night  by  some  magician's 
wand.  A  carpet  of  moss  covered  the  whole  ex 
panse,  and  artificial  glades,  rocks,  brooks  and 
cascades  made  a  bewildering  picture  of  sylvan 
beauty. 

All  at  once  the  significance  of  the  "Sherwood 
Forest  Fete"  came  to  Craig's  mind.  It  was  a  re 
production,  at  what  enormous  cost  he  could  only 
vaguely  guess,  of  that  romantic  land  of  the  woods 
where  Robin  Hood  and  his  jovial  crew  laid  tribute 
of  the  traveler;  where  Maid  Marian  loved  and 
Little  John  died;  where  Friar  Tuck  drank  solidly 

1 68 


AT  THE  VAN  RENSSALAER  LOW'S 

and  cursed  roundly — the  most  enchanted  country 
that  fancy  has  ever  devised. 

From  within  came  the  twinkle  of  lights,  the 
mellow  winding  of  horns,  the  lusty  music  of  glees, 
ripples  of  laughter  and  the  babel  of  human 
tongues  in  rapid  action. 

Philip  was  immediately  seized  upon  by  an 
archer  in  Lincoln  green  and  a  billy-cock  hat,  and 
hurried  away  to  be  presented  to  the  chief  patron 
ess  of  the  occasion,  who  was  holding  court  in  a 
tent  of  gorgeous  material.  All  around  were  fasci 
nating  evidences  of  someone's  artistic  planning. 
Deer  flitted  through  the  forests,  pursued  by  bands 
of  Robin  Hood's  archers;  milkmaids  and  yokels 
wandered  hand  in  hand;  Richard  Cceur  de  Leon 
and  the  Jolly  Priest  were  at  a  bout  with  quarter- 
staves;  all  the  famous  heroes  of  the  outlaw  crew 
were  stalking  abroad  regardless  of  the  Sheriff  of 
Nottingham  and  his  minions.  There  were  courts 
for  archery,  games  of  bowls  and  contests  at 
wrestling.  And  into  the  mediaeval  picture  swept 
the  throng  of  men  and  women  in  evening  dress, 
indifferent  to  the  anachronism  and  wondering, 
many  of  them,  how  a  decent  supper  could  be  pro 
vided  in  such  bizarre  surroundings. 

At  the  tent  of  honor,  where  he  was  received 
most  graciously,  Philip  found  a  group  of  men  he 
knew.  Price,  the  editor,  was  there,  giving  Mrs. 
Low  patronizing  assurance  that  the  American 
News  would  do  justice — ample  justice,  madam— 
to  the  quite  unprecedented  fete.  Lord,  the  rail 
road  man,  with  his  wife,  a  young  and  vapidly 
pretty  woman,  with  a  restless  ambition  to  enmesh 
every  social  lion  of  repute,  was  talking  the  eternal 
"shop"  with  Biddle  Jaffrey.  Ward  Neilson,  doing 

169 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

cavalier  duty  to  a  dashing  brunette,  the  only 
daughter  of  Belmont  Drexel,  the  banker,  had 
obtained  possession  of  Deschapelles,  now  a  noted 
figure  in  the  world,  and  the  young  woman  was 
chatting  gaily  with  the  Frenchman.  Philip  saw 
also  Wirislow  and  Davies  in  the  little  coterie,  and 
rejoiced  that  he,  a  hard-headed  man  of  affairs,  was 
not  entirely  without  appropriate  compeers.  These 
men  stood  forth  prominently  from  the  crowd  of 
insipid  and  bored-looking  individuals  who  strove 
to  uphold  the  prestige  of  that  "societ^"  that  is 
judeed  bv  the  frivolous  use  of  its  millions. 

The  chattering  small-talk  of  a  social  assembly, 
like  the  popping  of  snapping-crackers,  makes 
much  noise  but  little  danger,  although  in  both 
cases  the  atmosphere  may  be  rendered  malodor 
ous,  and  Craig's  induction  into  such  an  exhibition 
of  verbal  fireworks  both  amused  and  annoyed  him. 

Price  was  speaking  in  his  most  profoundly  ora 
torical  style  as  Philip  joined  the  group.  It  pleased 
him  to  pose  as  a  fearless  critic  of  those  whose  hos 
pitality  lie  shared,  and  that  he  was  not  debarred 
from  the  functions  of  the  elect  was  due  only  to  fear 
of  the  immense  power  he  wielded  by  his  paper. 

"Society,  my  dear  Mrs.  Low,"  he  said,  loudly, 
"is  a  maelstrom  from  which  the  plunger  emerges, 
if  he  emerge  at  all,  dizzy  and  bruised  from  his 
buffets  with  the  waves  of  convention  and  his  blows 
upon  the  rocks  of  disappointment." 

Having  thus  delivered  himself,  he  looked  about 
him  with  the  air  of  a  modern  Ajax  defying  the 
social  lightning. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  observed  the  handsome  Neil- 
son,  "I  fear  you  magnify  the  importance  of  the 
thing  we  hedge  about  with  ceremonial  and  call 

170 


AT  THE   VAN  RENSSALAER  LOW'S 

'society.'  It  is  no  maelstrom,  but  rather  a  foolish 
little  sea  rippling  in  shallows  over  a  not  too  odor 
ous  sandbar,  which  divides  the  wavelets  in  harm 
less  nothings  to  lap  noiselessly  upon  the  shores  of 
life.  Those  who  are  drowned  in  such  a  sea  lie 
there  by  their  own  free  will." 

The  black  eyes  of  Alice  Drexel  sparkled  ap 
proval.  She  was  very  much  in  love  with  this 
plain-spoken,  clever  young  fellow,  and  she  espe 
cially  despised  the  editor  of  the  American  News. 
She  gloried  in  such  a  match  of  wits. 

"Now  you're  talking  in  epigrams,  Neilson," 
sneered  Price. 

"Heaven  forbid,"  ejaculated  the  young  man. 
''The  chief  need  of  the  average  epigram  is  a  dia 
gram,  and  I  cannot  undertake  to  be  a  purveyor  of 
that  sort  of  thing." 

"But  don't  you  think,"  drawled  Mrs.  Lord, 
"that  we  find  true  happiness  in  developing  the 
social  side  of  our  lives?" 

"Happiness,  my  dear  Madam,  is  something  that 
most  of  us  search  for  so  busily  that  we  have  no 
time  to  stop  to  realize  that  we  have  found  it." 

"Most  of  us,"  thought  Alice  Drexel,  with  a 
little  throb  of  joy  at  her  heart.  She  knew  that  he 
and  she  had  found  their  time  and  their  happiness. 
Her  passionate  devotion  was  so  plainly  written 
upon  her  face  that  Craig  warmed  toward  her  at 
once ;  here  at  least  was  one  genuine  creature,  what 
ever  the  rest  might  be. 

At  this  point  Price  felt  impelled  to  return  to  the 
attack. 

"You  may  be  right,  Mr.  Neilson,  in  your  gen 
eral  theory,"  he  said,  sententiously,  "but  you  for- 

171 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

get  ambition,  which  takes  the  place  of  happiness, 
and  for  which  there  is  no  cure." 

"Ambition  ?  Yes,  there  is  a  cure.  The  specific 
is  failure,  the  physician  Death,"  retorted  Neilson, 
grimly. 

"Oh,  this  is  positively  dreadful,"  cried  Mrs. 
Lord,  gaily.  "Is  it  not  time  to  call  a  halt?  Let 
us  go  and  look  about  the  forest." 

As  the  party  split  up  into  smaller  groups,  Craig 
found  himself  accompanied  by  Price.  The  astute 
editor  made  it  a  practice  to  cultivate  all  new  men 
of  prominence,  to  tap  them,  as  it  were,  and  test 
the  quality  of  their  abilities.  Here  was  the  marked 
figure  of  the  day,  to  know  whom  might  be  of  in 
estimable  advantage  in  the  future.  He  deter 
mined,  therefore,  to  cling  to  Craig  with  more  than 
brotherly  closeness  for  the  time  being.  First  he 
would  be  agreeable,  he  thought. 

"Queer  coincidence  happened  in  my  business 
to-day,  Mr.  Craig,"  he  began  affably.  "My  'fea 
ture'  editor  told  me  a  very  interesting  story  of  an 
old  man  named  Craig  who  is  fighting  the  whole 
combined  power  of  the  Pneumatic  Engines  Com 
pany  over  in  Brooklyn.  The  man  owns  a  queer 
little  cottage  on  land  the  company  wants,  and  he 
won't  sell  or  be  evicted  or  anything  else.  There 
he  holds  the  fort  while  they  are  tearing  everything 
in  ruins  almost  about  his  ears.  It  sounded  so  in 
teresting  that  I  ordered  my  man  to  get  up  a  page 
spread,  illustrated,  on  the  case.  It  will  be  an  excel 
lent  chance  for  the  News  to  show  its  devotion  to 
the  people.  'Brave  old  Scot  defies  the  money 
power/  or  something  of  the  sort  for  a  heading. 
By  the  way,  isn't  Norton  interested  in  the  com 
pany?" 

172 


AT  THE  VAN  RENSSALAER  LOW'S 

"I  believe  so,"  replied  Philip,  shortly. 

"That  settles  it,  then.  Old  Craig  will  have  to 
go  as  sure  as  fate.  You  are  acquainted  with  John 
Norton's  methods,  I  take  it." 

"Mr.  Norton's  methods  are  not  a  proper  subject 
for  discussion,  sir,"  returned  Craig.  "I  am  ac 
quainted  with  the  case  you  mention,  however, 
and  I  think  I  am  justified  in  saying  that  no  injus 
tice  will  be  done  anyone." 

Just  before  them  the  path  broadened  and  there, 
in  a  blaze  of  light,  was  a  sight  that  gladdened 
Philip's  eyes  and  made  him  forget  the  great  editor 
and  his  insinuations.  At  one  of  the  archery 
booths  was  Helen,  his  pretty  Helen,  just  in  the  act 
of  bending  a  bow,  and  Rev.  Mr.  Bentley,  similarly 
armed,  was  looking  on  with  the  greatest  delight 
writ  on  his  fat  little  face.  Twang  went  the  string, 
and  the  clergyman  clapped  his  hands  as  the  arrow 
sped  on  into  the  very  bull's-eye  of  the  target.  The 
girl  turned  her  radiant  face  to  meet  her  mother's 
eye,  and  so  caught  sight  of  Philip.  And  although 
she  was  properly  reserved  and  maidenly  in  her 
greeting,  the  light  in  her  glance  told  him  that  all 
was  well.  This  was  the  first  time  he  had  seen  her 
surrounded  by  her  own  set,  and  he  had  to  confess 
that  the  exigencies  of  social  etiquette,  making  for 
little  bands  of  devotees  and  constant  shifting  of 
groups  of  admirers,  were  not  wholly  to  his  liking. 

Out  of  some  depth  of  the  forest  came  at  last  the 
flaxen  Count  Sandstrom  attended  by  Andrew 
Haven.  The  nobleman  had  been  the  prey  since 
his  appearance  in  Sherwood  of  designing  mamas 
and  over-willing  daughters,  to  all  of  whose  atten 
tions  he  had  responded  with  only  bored  noliteness. 

But  Helen  Norton,  with  her  freedom  from  arti- 
173 


ON   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

ficiality,  her  sunny  simplicity  and  her  fresh  beauty, 
interested  Sandstrom.  He  made  his  devoirs  so 
gallantly  and  so  wittily  that  Philip  felt  at  once  his 
great  superiority  as  a  courtier  and  conceived  a 
quite  unreasoning  dislike  of  the  man.  Even  Mr. 
Bentley  and  Mrs.  Norton,  he  noticed  with  chagrin, 
seemed  greatly  entertained  at  the  German's  bril 
liant  flow  of  talk,  and  he  himself  lapsed  into 
moody  silence. 

But  all  these  petty  troubles,  born  of  jealousy,  he 
confessed  to  himself  with  a  pitying  smile,  were 
quite  put  to  flight  when  Helen,  in  answer  to  the 
loud  calls  of  criers  sent  through  the  woods,  took 
his  arm  to  be  led  away  to  supper.  And  the  gentle 
pressure  on  his  arm  when  they  reached  a  particu 
larly  dark  spot  in  the  forest  sent  all  thoughts  of 
Sandstrom  and  the  rest  flying  into  nothingness. 

The  supper  was  strictly  in  keeping  with  the 
spirit  of  the  place.  It  was  served  around  open 
fires  at  which  Christoforo  and  his  assistants  had 
been  steaming  and  stewing  and  broiling  and  roast 
ing  sundry  articles  of  food  for  several  hours. 
There  were  haunches  of  venison,  great  joints  of 
beef,  noble  boars'  heads,  pasties  of  many  sorts, 
pheasants  cooked  in  clay,  sweetmeats  of  wondrous 
construction — all  accomplished  with  the  most 
consummate  art,  and  the  general  verdict  was  that 
Mrs.  Van  Renssalaer  Low  had  won  a  personal 
triumph  that  years  could  not  efface. 

As  Helen  and  her  mother  were  about  to  leave, 
Philip  noted  the  approach  of  Count  Sandstrom 
quite  as  if  by  accident.  With  the  most  elaborate 
courtesy  he  asked  that  he  might  escort  the  ladies 
to  their  carriage. 

"We  thank  you,  Count  Sandstrom,"  replied  the 


AT   THE   VAN  RENSSALAER  LOW'S 

mother,  sweetly,  "but  we  are  in  charge  of  Mr. 
Craig."  And  the  German  vanished  as  mysteri 
ously  as  he  had  appeared. 

But  as  he  was  smoking  his  ante-retiring  cigar 
ette  that  morning  the  Count  said  to  his  valet : — 

"Heinrich,  make  a  memorandum  to  answer  that 
letter  I  received  from  John  P.  Norton  some  three 
weeks  ago,  and  say  that  on  further  consideration 
I  have  decided  to  consider  his  proposition  to  join 
him  in  that  Homburg  investment." 


175 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

A  MATTER  OF  SENTIMENT. 

SEPTEMBER  was  in  its  closing  hours,  more 
rich  and  beautiful  than  was  ever  September 
before,  it  seemed  to  Philip,  when  a  cipher 
message  came  from  Norton. 

"I  sail  to-morrow  by  Sachem,"  it  said.  "Do  no 
business  with  Sandstrom." 

Craig  was  puzzled  at  this,  for  he  knew  by  the 
tenor  of  certain  correspondence  with  the  Count 
that  until  recently  Norton  had  had  no  dealings 
with  him.  It  was  a  curious  coincidence  that  his 
chief's  orders  on  this  point  should  arrive  at  almost 
the  identical  time  that  negotiations  were  about  to 
begin.  But  there  was  no  difficulty  in  obeying  in 
structions,  for  the  deal  in  which  Sandstrom  had 
expressed  interest  was  of  no  special  importance, 
and  could  be  stopped  at  any  time,  or  at  least  de 
ferred  until  Norton's  return,  by  a  polite  note. 

A  few  days  later  the  mammoth  liner  was  warped 
into  her  dock  seven  hours  late,  nor  had  she  been 
reported  by  the  aerophone  for  nearly  seventy-two 
hours.  This  was  a  remarkable  incident,  for  ocean 
travel  had  been  reduced  to  such  a  systematically 
accurate  science  that  schedules  rarely  varied  more 
than  half  an  hour  except  in  case  of  severe  storms. 

Early  as  it  was  on  this  bright  autumn  morning, 
the  immense  dock  was  crowded  by  men  and 
women  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  and  brought 

176 


A  MATTER  OF  SENTIMENT 

together  by  many  motives.  Rich  and  poor  were 
there  to  greet  their  own,  whether  in  the  conven 
tionally  correct  garb  of  the  first  cabin  or  stream 
ing  in  picturesque  riot  of  color  and  variety  of 
raiment.  The.  curious  and  the  criminal,  the 
haughty  and  the  meek,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  were 
for  once  hercled  together  into  one  primeval  human 
family. 

Helen  Norfon  was  interested  in  the  clatter  of 
voices,  the  struggles  of  the  crowd  for  positions  of 
vantage,  the  clanking  of  chains,  the  roaring  of 
escaping  steam  and  the  piercing  yells  of  the  omni 
present  small  boy,  even  as  she  grew  impatient  at 
the  preternatural  laziness  of  the  ocean  monster  in 
getting  itself  docked.  She  could  not  understand 
why  the  swift  racer  of  the  high  seas  should  be 
come  such  a  helpless  lubber  at  the  wharf.  Some 
thing  of  this  she  said  to  Philip,  whose  arm  she  was 
grasping  with  a  maidenly  confidence  that  was 
more  delightful  to  him  than  even  the  entrusting 
of  the  Norton  millions. 

''Well,  dear,"  he  replied  with  a  smile,  "it's  a 
habit  of  great  things,  whether  ships,  or  deals,  or 
hopes,  to  show  their  power  so  long  as  they  are 
moving.  Let  them  slow  down  for  a  bit,  and  they 
are  as  helpless  as  this  big  steamer." 

But  now  the  gang-plank  was  thrust  forward 
from  the  side  of  the  Sachem,  and  among  the  first 
to  land  was  John  Peter  Norton.  His  commanding 
form  was  at  once  surrounded  by  an  army  of  re 
porters  eager  to  get  the  great  man's  first  word. 
These  well-meaning,  but  necessarily  persistent 
gentlemen  he  courteously  brushed  aside  with  the 
promise  of  a  statement  later  in  the  day,  and  strode 
to  the  spot  where  stood  his  pretty  daughter  and 

177 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

her  lover.  A  kiss  for  the  one  and  a  hearty  hand 
clasp  for  the  other  were  before  long  duly  chroni 
cled  as  events  of  national  importance. 

"My  dear  little  girl,  how  you  are  improving!" 
he  exclaimed ;  "quite  a  woman,  I  declare.  And 
your  mother?  Good.  Well,  Craig?  Yes,  I  see 
you  are.  I  am,  too — never  better.  Have  you  a 
conveyance?  All  right,  let's  be  moving,  then." 

The  big  man  elbowed  his  way  through  the 
crowded  shed  to  the  carriage  yard,  where  Helen 
was  sent  home  in  charge  of  her  own  coachman. 
The  two  men  took  an  auto-car  and  started  for  the 
Norton  offices. 

"Confound  ship  machinery,"  exclaimed  "John 
Peter,"  as  they  bowled  along  toward  the  financial 
district,  "it's  always  breaking  down,  and  I  had 
planned  to  do  so  much  to-day.  Well,  let's  do 
what  we  can.  Have  you  heard  anything  from 
Sandstrom?" 

"I  have  received  several  communications  from 
him  in  regard  to  the  Homburg  deal." 

"That  is  excellent.  You  have  not  completed 
the  negotiations?" 

"No ;  your  cable  was  received  before  I  had  time 
to  do  so." 

"Good  again.  That  is  too  small  an  affair  as  it 
stands — or  rather  as  it  stood.  Now  I  am  in  a 
position  to  offer  him  something  worth  while." 

Craig  had  figured  roughly  that  the  Homburg 
business  would  return  a  profit  of  over  two  mil 
lions,  and  he  wondered  vaguely  what  gigantic 
stroke  was  to  replace  it.  But  as  usual  he  asked  no 
questions. 

"I   suppose,    Philip,"   continued    Norton,   "you 

178 


A   MATTER  OF  SENTIMENT 

were  a  bit  provoked  that  I  robbed  you  of  the 
opportunity  of  going  abroad." 

The  young  man  protested,  with  what  might 
have  been  suspicious  warmth  had  not  his  chief 
been  busy  with  his  own  thoughts,  that  there  was 
no  regret  on  his  part.  Could  there  be  aught  but 
gratitude  for  a  summer  of  Helen  and  love? 

"The  least  I  can  do,"  went  on  his  chief,  "is  to 
acquaint  you  with  the  nature  of  my  errand.  I 
went  to  Germany  to  post  myself  thoroughly  on 
the  financial  situation  there — riot  the  mere  figures 
of  annual  statistics  or  the  statements  of  individual 
money  matters,  but  the  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
position,  the  desires,  the  investments,  the  weak 
nesses  of  the  financial  leaders.  I  sought  especially 
the  rock-bottom  facts  concerning  the  house  of 
Sandstrom.  ...  By  the  way,  Philip,  I  don't  think 
I  ever  told  you  what  an  old,  long-headed  money 
lender  once  said  to  me  as  to  how  he  judged  the 
financial  responsibility  of  men." 

Craig  shook  his  head. 

"Well,  Samuel  Levine  was  the  cleverest  Hebrew 
who  ever  lent  a  dollar  and  got  back  two,  and  that, 
you'll  admit,  is  saying  a  great  deal.  He  often  had 
millions  at  interest — his  own  and  other  people's — 
and  if  he  ever  lost  a  dollar  he  never  admitted  it. 
He  was  sometimes,  in  my  early  days,  useful  to  me 
when  I  was  carrying  deals  bigger  than  I  could 
swing  alone,  and  I  was  well  acquainted  with  him, 
so  well  acquainted  that  he  never  charged  me  even 
the  legal  rate  of  interest.  One  day  I  mentioned 
the  name  of  a  prominent  man. 

"  'Don't  do  peesness  mit  him,  ma  boy,  don't  do 
peesness  mit  him,'  he  said.  I  ventured  to  inquire 

179 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

why  not,  and  remarked  that  he  was  rated  A  I  by 
the  commercial  exchange. 

"  'I  vonldn't  lent  him  a  tollar — not  a  tollar,' 
insisted  my  Hebrew  friend. 
" Why  not?'  I  asked. 

'  'He  is  no  goot.  He  has  so  many  servants  that 
two-thirds  of  'em  have  nodings  to  do.' 

"Old  Levine  had  no  confidence  in  men  whose 
business  principles  did  not  extend  to  their  own 
homes.  It  was  part  of  his  system  to  study  the  men 
with  whom  he  expected  to  have  dealings.  He 
inquired  into  their  private  lives,  their  business  as 
sociates,  their  petty  weaknesses.  Levine's  philos 
ophy,  a  bit  overdrawn,  perhaps,  has  in  this  case 
been  very  valuable  to  me.  When  I  meet  a  man, 
either  as  possible  friend  or  possible  foe  in  busi 
ness.  I  study  his  connections.  It  pays." 

In  what  camp  was  Sandstrom,  asked  Philip  of 
himself.  Was  there  to  be  an  alliance  or  a  battle 
of  giants?  Under  the  calm  surface  of  Norton's 
shrewd  philosophy  he  knew  existed  an  undercur 
rent  of  tremendous  potentiality.  The  trip  itself, 
the  last  cable  message,  the  quick  inquiry  as  to 
Sandstrom — all  spoke  volumes  to  him  who  could 
read  right.  And  he  believed  that  he  now  under 
stood  Norton  as  well  as  did  any  living  man. 

Up  to  the  closing  of  the  market,  which  was 
notably  buoyant  over  his  return,  Norton  was 
busily  engaged  with  his  brokers.  Then  Philip 
was  summoned  to  the  private  office.  He  found  his 
chief  looking  over  the  typewritten  statements  of 
the  various  enterprises  in  which  he  was  engaged, 
and  to  Avhich  Craig  had  added  brief  notes  of  such 
further  steps  as  had  been  taken.  He  looked  up 
with  a  rather  puzzled  expression. 

1 80 


A  MATTER  OF  SENTIMENT 

"I'm  surprised,  Philip,"  said  he,  "that  no  more 
progress  has  been  made  in  some  of  these  matters. 
That  South  American  business,  though,  has  been 
given  a  very  clever  turn ;  I  doubt  if  I  could  have 
thought  of  as  good  a  way  myself.  The  settlement 
of  the  deal  with  Sparhawk  &  Co.  is  excellent,  also. 
But  how  about  the  Onometer  Company? 
Couldn't  that  have  been  settled  under  the  policy 
outlined  ?  And  the  oil  deal  with  Ward  Neilson — 
he  was  all  ready  to  put  that  through  when  I  left. 
And  I  find  a  letter  from  Andrew  Haven  here  pro 
testing  against  your  order  that  he  stop  the  pro 
ceedings  for  the  additional  land  for  the  Pneumatic 
Engine  Co." 

Now  that  the  moment  had  arrived  to  set  his 
course  right  with  his  chief,  Philip  found  himself 
at  a  loss  to  begin.  How  easy  it  had  seemed  and 
how  difficult  it  was.  Yet  it  was  clear  enough  to 
his  intelligence,  and  he  was  about  to  prove  the 
faith  there  was  in  him  when  Norton  resumed. 

"1  see  the  Jamesons  gave  up  at  last." 

Here  was  the  entering  wedge,  thought  Philip, 
and  he  replied  gravely: — 

"They  did,  but  under  very  painful  circum 
stances." 

"Yes.  one  of  them  killed  himself,  I  believe. 
Probably  thought  that  the  only  thing  left  to  do. 
Pity  he  couldn't  have  been  more  reasonable." 

Something  grew  cold  around  Philip's  heart.  It 
seemed  almost  like  a  jest  at  death,  a  pleasantry 
over  an  appalling  tragedy.  His  hope  that  John 
Norton  would  soften  under  the  dire  result  of  the 
deal,  and  thus  be  willing  to  forego  other  similar 
plans  was  almost  ready  to  vanish.  Only  dimly  he 
comprehended  that  his  chief  was  still  talking,  and 

181 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  question  had  to  be  asked  twice,  a  thing  that  had 
never  before  happened  during  his  career  in  the 
office. 

"How  about  the  Onometer  Company:  couldn't 
we  get  control  ?" 

"Yes,  but  I  found  that  the  only  way  was  by 
wiping  out  the  small  stockholders." 

"The  best  way,  naturally.     What  about  it?" 

"I  investigated  the  situation,  and  found  that 
those  small  stockholders  were,  in  the  majority  at 
least,  widows  or  orphaned  children  whose  guardi 
ans  had  invested  all  their  money  in  the  Onometer 
concern." 

"Yes,  it's  often  that  \vay  in  those  companies. 
What  of  it?" 

"This,"  replied  Craig  with  a  new  note  of  appeal 
in  his  voice,  "I  thought  that  when  you  knew  the 
situation,  you  would — would  not  care  to  cripple 
such  people." 

"No,  not  if  there  is  another  way.  What  move 
do  you  propose?" 

"Nothing,  sir." 

"Well,  then,  they  must  take  their  chances." 

"But  I  know  that  some  of  them — I  have  investi 
gated  several  cases — will  be  utterly  ruined." 

"Unfortunate,"  returned  Norton,  calmly,  "but 
they  or  their  advisers  should  have  been  more  care 
ful.  How  about  the  Neilson  deal?" 

"That  is  much  the  same,"  said  Philip,  "if  those 
companies  are  united  with  the  Consolidated, 
twentv  thousand  workers  and  their  families  will  be 
affected." 

Norton  gazed  thoughtfully  at  his  assistant,  like 
a  doctor  making  a  sttent  diagnosis  of  strange 
symptoms.  He  pursed  his  thin  lips  and  looked 

182 


A   MATTER  OF  SENTIMENT 

half  amused,  half  irritated.  Here  was  a  new  sort 
of  figure  in  the  world  of  finance  and  action. 

"What's  the  matter,  Craig?"  he  asked.  "Have 
you  taken  the  burdens  of  humanity  on  your 
shoulders?" 

"Not  at  all,  but  I  didn't  think  you  would 
wish — " 

"Of  course  I  don't  wish  it.  I'd  help  it,  if  I 
could.  I'd  like  to  see  every  man,  woman  and  child 
in  the  world  well  and  happy  and — I  was  going  to 
say  rich,  but  perhaps  that's  not  the  best  sort  of 
wish.  But  I  can't  bring  it  about.  The  majority 
will  always  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  human  pile, 
and  if  we  try  to  drag  them  out,  they'll  only  pull  us 
in." 

"But  you  cannot  wish  to  profit  by  the  distress 
of  the  innocent?" 

"Sentimentality,  Philip.  We  are  doing  only 
legitimate  business.  If  we  don't  do  it,  someone 
else  will  do  it  worse.  Even  if  I  would,  I  couldn't 
stop  their  course  now.  You  know  others  are  in 
terested  with  me." 

The  last  of  Philip's  hopes  of  a  different  solution 
of  these  problems  faded  away.  He  feared  that  the 
tremendous  machinery  set  in  motion  by  Norton, 
and  stopped  by  himself,  would  start  up  again  at 
once,  grinding,  crushing,  killing  those  hapless 
victims  who  were  in  the  way.  Surprise,  disap 
pointment  and  bitterness  fought  for  expression  on 
his  face,  and  Norton's  keen  glance  noted  the  look. 
But  for  once  he  failed  to  penetrate  beneath  the 
surface. 

"You're  unstrung,  Philip,"  he  said  gently.  "The 
strain  has  been  too  heavy  for  you.  I  pitch-forked 
a  mass  of  things  upon  you  too  suddenly.  Get  out 

183 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

into  the  open  air  and  freshen  up  a  bit.  Take  two 
or  three  weeks'  vacation  at  the  mountains  or  at 
sea.  You  may  have  the  Sea  Lion  and  go  south,  if 
you  like.  Get  a  bracer  of  that  sort,  and  you'll  be 
all  right  again." 

So  saying,  the  financier,  in  kindly  fashion,  fairly 
thrust  the  young  man  from  his  door,  deaf  to  all 
attempts  at  expostulation,  and  peremptorily  or 
dered  him  not  to  appear  again  until  he  had 
regained  his  old-time  vigor  and  mental  equili 
brium. 


184 


CHAPTER  XX. 

PATERNAL    PROBATION. 

THE  cool  October  air,  blowing  up  fresh  from 
the  ocean,  acted  like  a  tonic  on  Philip's  dis 
ordered  nerves  and  confused  mentality. 
He  seemed  to  have  left  some  mephitic  atmosphere, 
some  stifling  place  where  righteousness  could  not 
breathe. 

He  began  to  think  clearly,  and  especially  of  the 
theme  that  was  uppermost  in  his  mind  when  he 
had  waited  on  the  wharf  for  Norton :  his  affection 
for  Helen  and  his  desire  to  win  and  wear  her.  He 
realized  that  he  had  said  nothing  at  all  of  the 
matter  to  the  man  who  should  have  known  at 
once,  but  he  could  not  blame  himself,  for  the  fin 
ancier  had  attacked  business  with  such  impetu 
osity  that  all  else  had  been  swept  aside. 

With  his  walk  came  better  hope  and  courage. 
All  wai  not  lost,  he  swore,  when  he  recalled  the 
generosity,  the  kindliness  with  which  his  chief  had 
bid  him  begone  for  rest.  The  man's  finer  nature 
would  assert  itself  and  temper  his  plans  with 
mercy.  Philip  was  ready  even  to  cast  part  of  the 
fault  upon  himself,  as  having  been  but  an  indiffer 
ent  advocate. 

"He  evidently  does  not  feel  all  that  he  said,"  he 
thought.  "I  was  over-anxious  and  expressed 
myself  badly  with  regard  to  those  matters,  and  he 
naturally  resented  my  freedom  in  calling  his 

185 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

attention  to  evils  that  had  not  occurred  to  him. 
He  will  doubtless  rectify  them  in  his  own  way." 

Then  he  fell  to  speculating  how  Norton  would 
receive  the  news  of  his  quasi-engagement  to 
Helen.  Who  would  tell  him?  Would  it  be  the 
gentle  woman  who  ruled  her  household  through 
love,  or  the  impetuous  girl  whose  pretty  tyrannies 
had  been  so  characteristically  exploited  by  "Doc" 
Bayles?  Whichever  the  messenger,  he  felt  that 
his  cause  would  not  suffer. 

By  and  by,  as  gathering  dusk  fell  upon  the 
streets  and  the  white  radiance  of  the  light-discs 
began  to  creep  across  and  conquer  the  gloom,  he 
paused  in  his  walk  and  looked  about  him.  Just 
ahead  he  saw  the  great  illuminated  clock  of  the 
central  subway  station  and  the  blazing  arch  of 
light  into  which  a  never-ending  multitude  was  be 
ing  swallowed  up  as  by  magic.  At  that  instant  his 
determination  was  taken. 

"Why  not?"  he  thought,  half  aloud.  "It  is  only 
common  courtesy  that  I  should  speak  to  him  at 
once.  The  office  was  no  place  for  such  a  confi 
dence.  I'll  wait  until  he  has  met  his  family  at 
dinner,  and  then  I'll  go  to  him  and  ask  him  for 
Helen." 

When  he  was  at  last,  after  a  dreary  wait  to  use 
his  surplus  of  time,  on  the  Brooklyn-bound  train, 
Philip  felt  a  benumbed  sense  of  weakness  that 
puzzled  him  until  he  remembered  that  he  had  had 
nothing  to  eat  since  his  early  breakfast.  In 
another  instant  he  laughed  at  the  idea  that  he, 
who,  as  a  boy,  had  often  gone  supperless  and 
dinnerless  to  bed,  should  be  troubled  by  such  a 
trifle  as  this. 

Before  the  Norton  estate  he  quite  forgot  his 
1 86 


PATERNAL   PROBATION 

physical  discomfort  in  the  surge  of  other  emotions 
that  swept  over  him.  He  seemed  to  have  lost  all 
his  firmness  of  character  in  the  face  of  the  simple 
duty  that  confronted  him;  he  even  feared  the 
friendly  guard  who  let  him  in  at  the  lodge,  and 
suspected  that  stolid  individual  of  peering  into  his 
very  soul. 

At  the  steps  of  the  house  he  paused  to  collect 
his  scattered  wits  and  make  a  sort  of  reconnois- 
ance.  He  could  hear  the  soft,  witching  sound  of 
a  Chopin  waltz  from  within,  its  gay  lilt  almost 
overborne  by  the  haunting  melancholy  of  the 
melody  in  the  bass.  How  like  love  and  life,  he 
thought;  joy  and  sorrow  intermingled,  each  con 
quering  the  other  in  turn  and  both  joined  in  bonds 
never  to  be  dissolved. 

Through  one  of  the  broad  windows  shadows 
silhouetted  themselves  against  the  mellow  light. 
A  man  was  sitting  near  a  table,  reading,  his  clean- 
cut  profile  bent  downward  toward  his  book.  A 
woman  was  sewing  near  at  hand.  And  even  as  he 
gazed,  the  trimmest,  roundest,  most  adorable 
shadow  ever  seen  crossed  the  room  lightly  and 
seemed  to  sink  toward  and  melt  into  that  of  the 
man. 

"Is  she  telling  him  of  me?"  Craig  queried  of  his 
own  consciousness.  "Come  now,  my  boy,  this 
won't  do.  Go  in  and  plead  your  own  case  in  man 
fashion.  You  were  never  given  to  blue-funking 
before." 

Somehow  he  rang  the  bell,  crossed  the  thresh 
old  and  handed  the  hall  man  his  card  with  the 
request  that  he  would  be  glad  to  see  Mr.  Norton 
alone. 

The  servant  winked  discreetly  at  the  man-in- 
187 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

the-moon  of  the  great  hall  clock ;  he  was  an  intelli 
gent  flunky  and  understood  why  this  young  man 
who  had  called  so  often  in  his  master's  absence, 
should  wish  to  see  that  master  in  private  immedi 
ately  on  his  return. 

In  the  library  Philip  found  Mr.  Norton  smoking 
one  of  his  thin,  exquisite  panatellas.  He  was  in  a 
genial  and  cheery  mood. 

"Well,  Philip,"  he  began,  "I  hardly  expected  to 
see  you  again  to-day,  but  I'm  glad  you  came.  Of 
course  it  isn't  business;  none  of  that  here,  you 
know.  Suppose  we  join  the  others?" 

That  being  the  very  thing  Philip  did  not  want 
to  do  at  present,  the  suggestion  threw  him  into  a 
woefully  nervous  state.  Love  runs  conscience  a 
close  race  in  making  cowards  of  us  all,  and  if  this 
sturdy  product  of  a  staunch  race  measured  his 
devotion  by  his  agitation,  he  was  a  noble  wooer 
indeed. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Norton,"  he  stammered,  "but 
I — I  wished  to  see  you  on  a  personal  matter — 
alone." 

"Oh,  very  well,  Philip.  Here's  a  comfortable 
chair.  And  have  a  cigar."  And  then — he  could 
never  have  written  a  clear  history  of  the  process — 
Philip  told  his  story,  haltingly,  modestly,  but  with 
fervent  earnestness  and  supreme  confidence  in  his 
love,  once  the  ice  had  been  broken. 

John  Norton  smiled  and  blew  a  particularly 
symmetrical  ring  from  his  cigar.  Perhaps  the 
memory  of  a  time  thirty  years  agone  made  him 
indulgent.  This,  then,  was  the  mouse  from  the 
mountain,  this  the  hidden  element  that  had 
clogged  his  assistant's  brain  and  distorted  his  view 

188 


PATERNAL   PROBATION 

of  great  business  strokes.  He  felt  more  kindly  to 
him  than  ever  before. 

"Philip,  my  boy,"  he  said,  as  he  rose  and  placed 
both  hands  on  the  young  man's  shoulders,  "I  may 
as  well  admit  that  this  is  not  unexpected,  although 
[  scarcely  thought  it  would  come  about  so  soon. 
I  gather  that  you  have — that  there  is  an  under 
standing  between  you." 

Philip  nodded. 

"I  should  have  preferred  that  it  had  been  de 
layed.  Helen  is  younger  than  her  years,  for  she 
has  seen  much  less  of  the  world  than  a  girl  in  her 
position  naturally  does.  She  has  been,  and  is  still, 
her  mother's  girl.  And,  by  the  way,  does  Mrs. 
Norton  know  of  this?" 

"Yes,  sir;  we  told  her  very  early." 

"Then  you  have  a  great  point  in  your  favor,  for 
if  she  did  not  approve,  I  should  not  have  heard 
this  first  from  you.  But  there  must  be  no  haste. 
I  should  even  prefer  that  there  be  no  formal  en 
gagement  until  we  are  all  more  certain." 

Craig  would  have  stoutly  declared,  his  own 
changeless  devotion,  but  that  Norton  went 
steadily  on. 

"I  like  you,  Philip.  You  have  reason  to  know 
that.  Blood  has  no  claims  upon  my  sympathy — 
that  you  have  probably  surmised.  Why,  even 
King  Capital,  Helen's  horse  Dandy,  hadn't  a  pedi 
gree  as  long  as  his  ears.  But  the  man  that  Helen 
marries  must  have  proved  himself  worthy  of  her. 
Two  or  three  years  will  test  the  metal  of  your  love, 
and  you  will  some  day  be  grateful  to  me  for  the 
delay." 

Philip's  spirits  sank  dismally  at  these  words. 
Two  or  three  years!  A  lifetime  for  lovers,  a 

189 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

period  wherein  any  malign  thing  might  happen 
before  the  final  happiness.  A  thousand  events 
might  arise  to  change  the  father's  opinion  of  him ; 
he  knew  the  old  saying  about  the  favor  of  princes. 
But  he  was  somewhat  reassured  by  the  kindly 
tones  of  Norton's  voice — the  most  gentle  cadence 
he  had  ever  heard  from  the  man  the  world  called 
hard. 

"You  will  not  find  a  captious  critic  in  me, 
Philip,"  it  said.  "All  I  ask  is  that  you  prove  your 
self  what  I  thought  you  when  I  selected  you  to 
stand  at  my  right  hand  in  the  conduct  of  my 
affairs." 

Again  the  dark  spectre  of  the  afternoon's  dis 
cussion  reared  its  form.  Philip  would  have  re 
ferred  to  the  matter  once  more,  but  that  Norton 
would  have  none  of  it. 

"Business  another  time,  my  boy.  This  evening 
is  the  ladies'.  I  rather  think  you'll  not  object, 
eh?" 

In  the  blissful  evening  that  followed,  a  time  of 
music,  laughter  and  love,  Philip  forgot  all  the  ills 
of  conscience  in  the  delights  of  the  senses.  That 
night  marked  the  flood  tide  of  his  happiness;  it 
was  a  roseate  bit  of  his  life  that  glowed  gently  in 
his  memory  as  long  as  memory  endured. 


190 


CHAPTER    XXL 

THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 

THE  next  day  was  Sunday,  and  Philip,  in  the 
natural  reaction  from  the  previous  evening's 
bliss,  was  restless  and  full  of  moods.  He 
could  think  of  nothing  better  to  clear  the  mists 
than  a  long  ride  away  from  all  the  sights  and 
suggestions  of  the  city.  In  a  high-speed  auto-car 
he  made  his  way  to  a  little  forest  inn  far  up  the 
Hudson  kept  by  a  quaint  philosopher  whom  he 
had  learned  to  like  years  before. 

There  he  drank  in  new  life,  fresh  inspiration  and 
a  determination  to  plunge  into  his  work  as  never 
before.  He  would  show  John  Norton  that  he 
could  be  of  value  even  in  the  narrower  channel  of 
the  undertakings  his  instincts  approved.  That  dis 
approval  in  one  meant  rebellion  in  all  never 
entered  into  his  thought. 

Next  morning  he  was  at  his  desk  long  before 
the  active  machinery  of  the  day  had  been  put  in 
motion,  and  by  the  time  his  chief  arrived  he  had 
perfected  the  details  of  several  important  matters. 

"What,  you  here,  Philip?"  exclaimed  Norton, 
kindly,  as  he  passed  through  to  his  holy  of  holies, 
"and  after  I  ordered  you  away,  too?  You're  an 
obstinate  youngster,  and  I  may  have  to  discipline 
you.  But  since  you  are  on  deck,  drop  in  to  see 
me  at  your  convenience." 

For  Craig  this  meant  immediate  action,  and  in 
191 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

a  few  minutes  he  was  standing  before  the  head  of 
the  house,  his  mind  as  clear  and  his  heart  as 
staunch  as  ever  in  his  life.  Like  a  good  sailor  he 
had  taken  his  soundings  and  charted  his  course, 
and  his  wheel-hand  was  as  firm  as  iron.  He  knew 
that  he  was  a  different  man  from  the  confused  and 
almost  weak-spirited  fellow  of  two  days  before. 
For  once  there  should  be  no  fungus  growth  of 
misunderstanding. 

Norton  lost  no  time  in  the  social  amenities. 

"Well,  Philip,"  he  began,  "let's  clear  up  all 
unfinished  business,  as  the  manuals  say.  There 
are  big  things  ahead  of  us,  and  we  want  no  loose 
ends  in  the  way." 

With  the  marvelous  rapidity  characteristic  of 
him,  Norton  sketched  out  certain  steps  necessary 
for  bringing  some  pending  deals  to  a  conclusion. 

"Now,"  he  proceeded,  "in  the  Onometer  Com 
pany  matter  there  is  but  one  thing  to  do.  With 
out  that  company  the  combination  will  be  useless, 
for  as  an  independent  operator  it  will  make  us 
powerless.  We  must  crowd  out  the  Haynes  in 
terest." 

Philip  saw  that  there  was  no  escaping  the  issue. 
Like  a  stag  in  a  battue  he  was  unwittingly  driven 
on  and  on  toward  the  point  where  every  barrier 
converged.  There  were  no  side  avenues  of  exit; 
he  must  go  straight  ahead  and  fight  his  way 
through  as  best  he  might. 

"But  that  will  ruin  the  small  stockholders,"  he 
said,  gravely. 

"Small  stockholders  are  always  ruined  in  big 
deals.  They'll  save  what  they  can,  and  make  it 
up  in  a  more  profitable  transaction." 

"But,  Mr.  Norton,  you  do  not  know  the  cir- 
192 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 

cumstances ;  I  do.  I  have  investigated,  and  as  I 
told  you  Saturday — ' 

A  smile,  of  neither  amusement  nor  pleasure, 
flitted  across  the  thin,  straight  lips. 

"I  thought  that  was  forgotten,  Craig.  You 
must  drop  sentiment  and  come  to  facts." 

''But  these  are  facts,  powerful  facts,"  returned 
Philip,  the  eloquence  of  a  great  earnestness  filling 
his  voice.  "It  is  a  fact  that  these  people  will  be 
deprived  of  their  all." 

"Your  sympathy  is  creditable,"  said  Norton, 
icily,  "how  then  shall  we  obtain  control  ?" 

"We  might  interest  Haynes  in  the  deal." 

"Impossible,  at  least  on  any  terms  that  I  can 
grant.  Besides,  Haynes  is  a  self  asserted  enemy  of 
mine :  he  has  made  a  boast  of  it."  A  note  of  in 
tense,  if  quiet  hatred  came  into  the  metallic  voice 
with  the  words;  a  king  accusing  a  subject  of  trea 
son  could  not  have  expressed  more  abhorrence. 

"This  thing  must  go  on,"  he  said,. slowly,  "it  is 
final.  Now  as  to  the  oil  company  deal.  The  con 
solidation  papers  must  be  signed  this  week.  Send 
for  Neilson,  and  close  the  matter  up." 

"But  the  men — their  wives  and  children  !" 

"Pawns,  Craig,  pawns,  to  be  swept  from  the 
chess-board  of  life  because  they  are  in  the  way." 

For  the  first  time  Philip  understood  why  the 
great  world  called  John  Norton  hard,  why  it 
looked  upon  him  as  the  incarnation  of  relentless 
force  set  in  motion  by  the  desire  to  conquer  the 
world  of  money.  He  seemed  as  aloof  from  the 
pains  and  distress  of  humanity  as  the  fates  of 
mythology,  who  spin  and  cut  and  plan  in  obe 
dience  to  a  power  even  higher  than  their  own. 

"And  the  Jameson  concern,"  continued  the 
193 


ON   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

chief,  "I  understand  that  the  surviving  brother  has 
secured  capital  somewhere — probably  from  some 
philanthropic  fool — and  that  it  is  to  resume  busi 
ness.  This  time  the  company  must  be  crushed  for 
ever.  Hastings  is  too  slow;  you  must  see  to  this 
yourself." 

Philip  Craig's  spirit  became  once  more  his  own. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  the  cumulative  strength  of 
a  long  race  of  conscience-obeying  men  and  women 
gathered  itself  in  his  soul  for  one  tremendous  blow 
against  evil.  His  mental  vision,  too,  went  far 
beyond  the  walls  of  the  temple  of  wealth,  across 
the  inexpressible  activity  of  the  city  streets  to  a 
darkened  house  where  a  widow  was  weeping  her 
slain.  Could  he  be  accessory  to  her  further  tears  ? 
Was  he  to  become  the  tool  of  oppression,  selling 
himself  into  bonds  that  could  not  be  broken  once 
tighvly  forged?  He  rose  to  his  feet  and  looked 
into  his  employer's  steely  eyes  without  a  tremor. 

"That  I  cannot  do,  Mr.  Norton,"  he  said, 
calmly. 

"Cannot?    And  why?" 

"Because  it  is  not  right.  Neither  can  I  serve 
you  in  the  Onometer  and  the  Ward  Neilson 
projects." 

Over  John  Norton's  heavy  face  there  came  a 
flush  that  welled  up  from  his  neck  and  spread  even 
to  the  roots  of  his  hair.  His  left  thumb  disap 
peared  under  the  arch  of  his  ringers,  and  the  closed 
fist  trembled  slightly  as  it  lay  on  the  polished  rose 
wood  of  his  desk.  But  his  voice  was  as  steady  and 
low  as  ever. 

"So,  sir,"  he  said,  "I  am  to  understand  that,  for 
mere  childish  sentiment,  you  refuse  to  carry  for 
ward  the  business  which  I  have  entrusted  to  you?" 

194 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 

"Yes,  sir — at  least,  business  of  that  character. 
I  cannot  and  I  will  not  do  it." 

"When  you  spoke  in  this  vein  on  the  day  of  my 
return  I  thought  you,  as  I  said,  unstrung,  but 
to-day—" 

Craig  smiled  grimly  and  shook  his  head. 

"No,  Mr.  Norton,  I  am  speaking  and  acting 
calmly.  I  cannot  rise  on  the  ruined  hopes,  per 
haps  the  dead  bodies  of  innocent  men,  women  and 
children." 

"You  exaggerate.  You  seek  to  class  accepted 
business  methods  with  brigandage." 

"Is  there  enough  difference  for  a  distinction?" 

"This  passes  patience,"  exclaimed  Norton, 
angrily.  "Your  logic  to  your  employer  savors  of 
impertinence.  Let  us  end  this  matter  here  and 
now.  Will  you  or  \vill  you  not  carry  out  these 
instructions?" 

With  infinite  deliberation,  so  that  it  seemed 
hours  to  him  while  the  words  came  from  his  lips, 
Philip  gave  his  answer. 

"I — can — not !" 

Norton  rose  almost  as  slowly.  The  red  tide  of 
anger  had  receded,  and  his  face  was  now  as  pale 
and  expressionless  as  that  of  the  dead.  He  drew 
himself  up  to  his  full,  ponderous  height  and  faced 
his  assistant  as  if  he  would  overawe  him  by  mere 
superiority  of  bulk. 

"You  have  mistaken  your  man,  Craig,"  he  said. 
"I  confess  I  have  mistaken  mine,  something  I 
seldom  do." 

"I  am  sorry — " 

"Sorry  that  I  do  not  see  things  as  you  do,  I 
suppose." 

"No,  sir.  I  am  sorry  that  I  have  given  you 
195 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

reason  to  believe  that  I  could  possibly  place  self- 
interest  so  far  above  the  dictates  of  conscience." 

"I  am  sorry,  too,"  replied  Norton,  "for  I  had 
hoped  great  things  from  your  co-operation." 

"And  you  could  trust  to  the  loyalty  of  a  man 
who  could  be  so  disloyal  to  himself?" 

"I  do  not  understand  you,  Craig,  I  confess.  In 
thirty  years  of  business  no  man  has  ever  talked  to 
me  as  you  have  done.  I  believed  you  clear 
headed,  practical.  I  find  you  visionary,  senti 
mental.  You  are  far  from  the  man  I  thought  you 
when  I  welcomed  you  as  a  possible,  indeed  prob 
able,  husband  of  my  daughter." 

The  grim  significance  of  this  struck  sudden  pain 
through  Philip's  heart.  He  had  not  reckoned  on 
the  ruin  of  his  castles  in  Spain,  the  blight  upon  his 
love,  the  bitter  struggle  to  win  this  man's  treasure, 
if  win  her  he  ever  could.  There  are  moments  in 
our  lives  when  counting  the  cost  means  moral  dis 
integration.  But  Craig  went  on  without  faltering; 
to  be  bought  by  emotions  would  have  been  to  him 
as  dishonorable  as  being  bought  by  money. 

"If  I  did  otherwise  than  I  have  done,  I  should 
not  think  myself  worthy  of  her,"  he  said. 

"Are  you  fool  or  dupe?"  sneered  Norton.  "Are 
you  a  monomaniac  on  conscience,  or  are  you 
really  better  than  the  average  man,  I  wonder?" 

"None  of  these,  sir,"  replied  Philip,  wrathfully. 
"I  have  only  seen  the  effects  of  injustice  as  it  has 
struck  at  a  heart  from  which. my  own  life-blood 
flowed." 

"You  mean — ?" 

"I  mean,"  said  the  young  man  passionately, 
"that  the  Angus  Craig  your  millions  would  drive 

196 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 

by  legal  trickery  from  the  house  they  are  unable 
to  buy,  is  my  father." 

Norton  stared  at  his  protege  in  utter  confusion. 
In  all  the  years  of  his  activity  no  one  had  so 
shaken  his  mental  poise,  so  nearly  reduced  him  to 
the  commonplace  level  of  men  who  stammer. 

"Craig?  Why,  I — oh,  the  Pneumatic  Engine 
Company.  But  you  said  nothing  of  this.  It  could 
be  adjusted." 

"That  instance  simply  made  me  see  other  things 
in  their  true  light."  replied  Philip.  "You  will 
acquit  me  of  any  selfish  motive,  I  am  sure." 

The  financier  sat  down  again  in  his  great 
leathern  chair  and  idly  swung  to  and  fro,  his  hand 
pressed  to  his  lips.  When  he  spoke  he  seemed 
almost  to  have  forgotten  Philip's  presence. 

"It  was  most  unfortunate.  ...  If  I  had  but 
known.  .  .  .  But  Haven  had  the  matter  in 
charge." 

There  was  a  long  silence,  broken  at  last  by  the 
younger  man. 

"Will  it  be  agreeable  to  you  to  have  my  resig 
nation  to  take  effect  from  writing?"  he  asked. 

Norton  was  roused  from  his  musing  as  by  a 
trumpet-blast.  There  was  that  in  Craig's  voice 
that  was  a  call  to  arms,  a  challenge  to  a  test  of 
strength.  And  as  he  looked  up  he  saw  a  new  and 
stern  face  gazing  at  his  own.  The  sense  of  great 
opposition  had  reached  him.  It  was  will  against 
will,  and  in  that  gage  of  battle  all  his  liking  for  the 
young  man  vanished  in  an  instant.  He  saw  in 
him  only  a  quixotic  fool  with  the  hardihood  to  put 
on  the  puny  armor  of  conscience  and  offer  combat 
against  a  seasoned  warrior.  There  was  but  one 
thing  to  do. 

197 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"As  you  please,"  he  replied  coldly,  and  turned 
to  busy  himself  with  his  papers. 

Philip,  without  another  word,  walked  from  the 
room  and  to  his  desk,  where  he  mechanically 
wrote  the  brief  note  that  was  to  strip  from  him  a 
princely  salary,  the  prospect  of  colossal  power  and 
the  right  to  woo  a  beautiful  girl.  Something  of  all 
this  flashed  through  his  mind  as  he  signed  his 
name,  and  yet  he  remembered  afterward  that  he 
had  had  no  regret  at  the  time.  He  quickly  sent 
the  letter  to  his  chief  by  a  boy. 

The  reply  was  immediate. 

"Your  resignation  is  accepted,"  was  its  curt 
tenor.  "You  will  please  send  your  keys  to  me. 
Of  course  it  will  be  useless  for  you  to  expect  to 
continue  your  acquaintance  with  my  daughter." 

Philip  stared  at  Norton's  closing  words,  and 
drew  his  hand  across  his  eyes  as  if  to  correct  his 
vision.  Then  he  read  once  more. 

With  the  letter  tightly  held  he  arose  and  walked 
toward  the  private  office.  At  the  threshold  he 
shook  his  head  with  a  grave  smile  and  crushed  the 
bit  of  paper  to  a  tiny  ball.  A  minute  later,  having 
delivered  his  keys,  he  was  in  the  street,  and  the 
interior  of  the  great  Norton  office  had  become  but 
a  memory. 

The  head  of  the  house  sat  for  some  time  gazing 
fixedly  at  the  shining  little  emblems  of  power  that 
were  brought  to  him.  At  last  he  laid  them  gently 
on  his  desk,  and  pressed  a  button. 

"Have  Mr.  Andrew  Haven  telephoned  to,"  he 
said  to  the  employee  who  came  at  the  summons, 
"and  ask  him  to  call  and  see  me  at  once." 


198 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

BLOW    UPON    BLOW. 

NOW  that  Philip  Craig  had  crossed  his  Rubi 
con,  there  was  no  backward  glance  at  the 
pleasant  land  on  the  farther  shore.  He 
would  go  on  where  duty  led,  with  no  regrets  for 
his  decision.  If  other  men  followed  a  code  of  busi 
ness  ethics  he  abhorred,  that  was  nothing  to  him, 
nor  could  any  amount  of  specious  reasoning  con 
vince  him  that  profit  deliberately  wrung  from  the 
woe  of  the  innocent  was  anything  better  than 
blood-money. 

He  remembered  an  old  saying  of  his  father's: 
"Show  me  a  mon  who  makes  a  fortune  in  quick 
speculation,  an'  I'll  show  ye  ane  who'll  hae  to 
stand  sponsor  before  the  Almighty  for  meesery 
and  want."  He  approved  it  heartily;  in  fact,  he 
had  found  himself  for  some  time  thinking  of  his 
rather  crabbed  sire  with  a  growing  conviction  that 
his  bitter  philosophy  held  great  truths.  Now, 
more  than  ever,  he  saw  the  elemental  strength  of 
the  man. 

But  what  the  path  of  duty  was  at  this  juncture 
he  did  not  clearly  know.  He  felt  certain,  however, 
that  the  highway  of  business  was  closed  to  him. 
As  a  discarded  employee  of  John  Norton  he  would 
be  of  little  value  except,  perhaps,  to  swindlers  who 
could  use  his  knowledge  of  the  financier's  affairs 
for  their  own  profit.  He  felt  a  sort  of  exultation 

199 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

as  he  thought  of  the  havoc  he  could  make  of  the 
great  "John  Peter's"  most  cherished  plans;  yet  he 
had  no  temptation  thereto.  His  hands  were 
washed  clean,  and  he  did  not  care  to  plunge  them 
into  the  dirty  water  again. 

Philip  was  far  from  believing  himself  either 
fitted  for  or  worthy  of  religious  work,  as  such,  yet 
he  did  feel  a  strong  desire  to  be  of  some  use  to 
humanity.  He  had  sacrificed  his  material  pros 
pects  for  a  principle  profoundly  connected  with  his 
fellow  men ;  why  not  be  consistent,  and  go  farther 
along  the  same  lines?  Yet  how?  And  then,  there 
was  Helen! 

Being  a  young  man  of  determination,  he  re 
solved  not  to  give  the  girl  up  without  a  struggle. 
He  believed  she  would  rely  upon  him  to  show  his 
mettle  for  the  winning  of  her,  and  he  told  himself 
that  she  should  be  satisfied. 

How  to  set  about  this  battle  for  love  Philip  took 
some  time  in  deciding.  Manifestly  he  could  not 
gather  a  band  of  devoted  followers  and  take  Castle 
Norton  by  assault.  He  did  not  quite  trust  to  the 
efficacy  of  the  mail,  for  he  knew  enough  of  Norton 
to  feel  sure  that  all  letters  to  Helen  would  be  rig 
orously  scrutinized.  And,  although  he  never 
doubted  her  heart,  he  knew  that  she  would  be 
harassed  between  love  for  him  and  loyalty  to  her 
father,  and  should  have  all  the  aid  and  comfort  he 
could  give. 

Next  day  he  decided  on  a  strategic  move.  He 
would  send  a  message  to  Helen  by  some  one  who 
had  access  to  her  and  whom  he  could  trust.  And 
that  someone  should  be — 

"Muggsy." 

He  spoke  the  name  aloud  in  his  delight  at  hav- 
200 


BLOW  UPON  BLOW 

ing  solved  the  problem.  The  diminutive  offspring 
of  "Doc"  Bayles  saw  Helen  every  day,  he  knew, 
for  the  girl  was  constant  in  her  visits  to  the  sta 
bles;  then  again,  the  jockey  owed  him  the  recom 
pense  of  a  good  turn,  for  he  had  often  employed 
him  as  a  messenger  of  Cupid  when  the  work  was 
easy  and  the  rewards  generous. 

"The  very  person,"  Philip  said,  "he  is  shrewd, 
devoted  to  Helen  and  really  owes  me  a  service. 
I'll  use  him." 

To  call  at  the  abiding  place  of  young  Bayles  was 
not  politic,  but  the  telephone  was  at  hand,  and  the 
small  emissary  was  quickly  reached. 

"Hello,  that  you,  Muggsy?"  said  Craig,  as  he 
pulled  the  shining  standard  across  his  desk.  "Are 
you  busy?  Then  please  come  to  my  chambers  as 
soon  as  you  can.  I've  an  important  errand  for 
you.  You'll  be  here  in  an  hour  ?  Good  boy.  And 
by  the  way,  you  needn't  mention  this  to  anyone. 
Good-by." 

Then  Philip  gave  himself  to  the  task  of  writing 
an  appropriate  letter  to  Helen,  and  he  found  it  a 
difficult  thing  to  do.  To  say  too  much  or  too 
little,  to  be  too  ardent  or  too  dignified  was  ab 
surdly  easy ;  but  to  tell  her  of  his  breach  with  her 
father  with  no  vainglory  and  yet  establishing  the 
justice  of  his  own  position  caused  him  many  a 
qualm. 

After  writing  and  destroying  half  a  dozen  notes 
he  evolved  something  that  survived.  Perhaps  the 
ringing  of  his  bell,  evidently  the  forerunner  of 
"Muggsy's"  arrival,  had  something  to  do  with  it; 
at  any  rate,  the  letter  explaining  the  rupture, 
breathing  unalterable  love  and  imploring  Helen  to 
meet  him  next  day  at  a  certain  hour  in  a  certain 

201 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

art  gallery  they  were  wont  to  visit  together,  was 
sealed  and  addressed  by  the  time  the  junior 
Bayles,  dressed  in  brown  velveteens  and  smelling 
very  much  of  the  stables,  was  ushered  to  the  apart 
ments  by  a  scandalized  hall-boy. 

"Come  in,  Bayles,"  he  said,  to  the  further  dis 
approbation  of  the  ebony  servant,  "I  won't  detain 
you  but  a  minute.  How  are  you — and  your 
father?" 

"Doc  an'  me's  well,"  replied  the  youthful  stoic. 
"What  is  it  you  want  this  time,  sir?" 

"I'll  tell  you.  Take  this  envelope  and  deliver  it 
to  Miss  Norton — '' 

'To  Miss  Helen,  sir?" 

"Yes,  yes,  of  course." 

"Beg  pardon,  sir.  Didn't  know  but  you  might 
'a  meant  the  old  Mis'  Norton,"  replied  "Muggsy," 
with  just  the  suspicion  of  a  mischievous  gleam  in 
his  eye. 

"Deliver  it  to  Miss  Helen,"  continued  Craig, 
"when  she  is  alone — not  otherwise.  And  have  her 
read  it  in  your  presence.  Then  come  back  to  me 
with  her  answer,  whether  written  or  spoken.  If 
there  is  any  delay  in  delivery,  let  me  know  by  tele 
phone.  Now  do  you  understand  this  thor 
oughly?" 

"I  does,  sir.  I'll  do  it  right,  sir,  you  kin  depend. 
.  .  .  Oh,  thankee,  sir." 

It  was  not  until  evening  that  Philip's  anxiety  of 
waiting — he  had  even  had  dinner  sent  up  to  his 
rooms — was  relieved  by  the  tinkle  he  instinctively 
recognized  as  proceeding  from  "Muggsy."  He 
seized  the  receiver  nervously. 

"Yes,  it's  I — Mr.  Craig.  What?  Not  able  to 
see  her  alone?  Oh,  guests,  were  they?  H'mph, 

202 


BLOW  UPON  BLOW 

Haven  ?  And  another  gentleman,  you  say  ?  Well, 
it  can't  be  helped.  Try  hard  to-morrow." 

"It  can't  be  till  afternoon;  I'm  on  duty  till 
then,"  came  the  answering-  voice,  and  with  that 
decree  Craig  had  to  be  content. 

Next  day,  for  want  of  something  to  relieve  the 
tension  of  his  mind,  as  well  as  obeying  a  rather 
unusual  impulse,  he  went  to  see  the  Rev.  Adoni- 
ram  Bentley  at  his  "office,"  far  down  in  the  slum 
district  of  the  city.  During  the  night,  which  had 
held  its  wakeful  hours,  the  mild  eyes  and  gentle 
voice  of  the  clergyman  had  seemed  to  brood  over 
him,  to  hold  out  promise  of  peace,  even  to  call 
him  from  his  valley  of  gloom  up  into  a  hillside  of 
sunshine.  It  was  half  dream,  half  walking  illusion, 
but  it  moved  him  deeply  and  he  answered  the 
summons. 

Rev.  Mr.  Bcntley's  "clearing-house  for  misery," 
as  someone  had  called  it,  had  been  in  earlier  days 
the  approach  through  one  side  of  a  building  to 
some  warehouses  in  the  rear.  These  had  long 
since  gone  the  way  of  things  mortal,  and  Mr. 
Bentley  had  rented  the  narrow  space,  partitioning 
off  one  end  into  a  tiny  room  for  his  desk  and 
library.  The  rest  of  the  corridor  was  lined  with 
benches  for  his  "patients,"  as  he  termed  them. 

"The  poor  and  the  criminal  are  all  sick,"  he  was 
wont  to  say,  "and  their  healing  is  usually  more 
difficult  than  the  average  hospital  case." 

When  Philip  arrived  the  good  clergyman's 
morning  work  was  well  in  hand,  and  there  were 
not  more  than  a  half-dozen  miserable  specimens 
of  humankind  sitting  on  the  benches.  They  gazed 
at  the  clean-cut,  vigorous  young  man  with  sodden 
curiosity  or  hopeless  envy.  What  possible  errand 

203 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

could  he  have  with  the  soul-doctor,  they  won 
dered. 

Bentley,  too,  was  surprised  to  see  Philip,  yet  he 
greeted  him  with  the  great-hearted  kindness  that 
made  him  such  a  power  for  good  among  the 
powers  of  evil. 

"Well,  Philip,"  he  said,  after  the  more  formal 
greetings,  "what  is  it?  I  know  that  it  is  out  of 
the  common,  or  you  would  not  be  here  at  this  time 
of  the  day.  And  I'm  sorry  that  I  can  see  distress 
in  your  face." 

Then,  feeling  for  the  first  time  the  tremendous 
strain  he  had  undergone,  seeing  his  own  troubled 
soul  mirrored  back  in  the  tenderly  compassionate 
eyes  of  his  friend,  Philip  poured  forth  his  story  as 
a  child  might  tell  its  sorrows  at  its  mother's  knee. 

The  little  clergyman  listened  with  ever-growing 
astonishment.  Strange  stories  he  had  heard  in 
his  time,  harrowing  tales  of  self-corruption  and 
disgrace,  confessions  of  crimes  that  would  curdle 
the  blood,  but  nothing  so  unusual  as  this.  Here 
tofore  evil  had  alwavs  triumphed  over  good ;  none 
had  ever  come  to  tell  him  that  conscience  had  won 
a  victory.  He  listened  intently,  his  head  bowed 
upon  his  hands. 

"Well,"  said  Philip,  with  a  constrained  little 
laugh,  when  he  had  finished,  "I  have  told  my 
story;  what  have  you  to  say?" 

Mr.  Bentley  raised  his  eyes  and  gazed  mildly  at 
his  caller's  somewhat  excited  face. 

"I  am  sincerely  sorry  for  you,  Philip,"  he  said. 
"What  can  I  say  more?  You  have  not  come  to 
me  for  advice,  for,  as  you  say,  there  can  be  no 
turning  back. 

"No — no — but  I  did  not  even  intend  to  tell  you 
204 


BLOW  UPON  BLOW 

or  anyone.     But  now  that  I  have  told  you,  have  I 
done  right?" 

"Your  conscience,  not  I,  must  be  the  judge. 
Possibly—" 

"Possibly— well?" 

''Possibly  you  were  overstrained  by  the  tragedy 
you  mentioned.  Mr.  Norton,  generous,  syste 
matically  charitable  man  that  he  is,  would 
scarcely — " 

"Charitable!"  broke  in  Philip,  fiercely.  "Yes,  if 
it  is  charitable  to  bind  up  the  wounds  we  ourselves 
inflict." 

"Can  he  be  held  accountable  for  the  sufferings 
of  the  children  his  hospital  is  to  shelter?"  asked 
the  clergyman,  with  gentle  emphasis. 

Craig  felt  a  hot  wave  of  indignation  surge  up 
from  his  heart.  Was  this  man,  then,  like  all  the 
rest,  lenient  to  the  sins  of  his  benefactors? 

"You,  of  course,  can  see  no  wrong  in  him,"  he 
exclaimed,  bitterly.  "I  forgot  you  were  to  be  his 
almoner." 

"Philip !" 

Only  one  word,  but  so  filled  with  the  tender 
melancholy  of  reproach  that  the  younger  man 
would  fain  have  hidden  his  face. 

"Forgive  me."  he  said,  humbly,  "I  did  not  mean 
it.  I  scarcely  know  what  I  am  saying." 

And  as  the  clergyman  gazed  at  the  drawn  and 
haggard  face  opposite  him  he  could  well  believe 
that  Philip  was  not  responsible  for  his  words. 
There  was  an  unnatural  light  in  his  eyes,  and  his 
voice  did  not  ring  true.  For  a  moment  Mr.  Bent- 
ley  feared  that  some  mental  or  physical  link  in  the 
chain  might  snap  under  the  tension.  He  would 
do  what  he  could  to  ease  the  strain. 

20  q 


ON   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Philip,  my  lad,"  he  began,  "we  cannot  always 
judge  of  right  or  wrong  by  individual  instances. 
Even  absolute  oppression  sometimes  changes  by 
perspective.  Great  progress  never  fails  to  leave 
destruction  in  its  path.  Napoleon  strode  through 
the  ashes  of  myriads  of  homes,  over  the  corpses  of 
unnumbered  thousands,  but  the  legacy  of  the  ruin 
he  wrought  is  seen  to-day  in  an  ennobled  Europe." 

"But  do  you  compare  this  business  wrar  upon 
individuals — ?" 

He  could  not  go  on.  Argument  with  this  man 
whom  he  knew  to  be  noble,  charitable,  generous 
and  good  seemed  almost  like  a  needless  insult.  But 
the  fact  that  the  clergyman  failed  to  see  things  as 
he  saw  them  shocked  him  deeply  and  took  the 
very  ground  from  under  his  feet. 

"Even  if  things  were  as  bad  as  you  thought," 
said  Mr.  Bentley,  "you  might  have  done  more  for 
humanity  by  remaining  and  trying  to  soften  the 
injustices  than  by  giving  the  work  over  to  other 
and  less  conscientious  hands.  You  have  sug 
gested  a  personal  interest  on  my  part.  Is  it  unfair 
if  I  hint  that  the  fact  that  your  father  was  a  threat 
ened  victim  may  have  aroused  your  own  self- 
interest?" 

It  was  now  Philip's  turn  to  feel  the  sting;  he  was 
not  so  patient  as  the  other  had  been. 

"Good  God,  man,"  he  exclaimed,  hotly,  "as  if 
concern  for  him  could  dwarf  my  other  self-inter 
est!  You're  illogical." 

"True,  you  lose  money  and  position,"  returned 
the  clergyman,  "but  I  know  you  well  enough  to 
realize  that  they  would  not  weigh  in  the  balance." 

"It  is  not  that.  Don't  you  know — haven't  you 
seen — that  I  love  Helen  Norton  ?" 

206 


BLOW  UPON  BLOW 

Now  Mr.  Bentley  had  not  known  nor  surmised 
it,  much  as  he  had  been  in  the  company  of  both. 
To  his  gentle  soul  the  manifestations  of  affection, 
had  he  noted  them  at  all,  would  have  seemed  only 
part  and  parcel  of  the  great  common  love  human 
ity  should  share.  But  now,  as  he  learned  the  truth, 
he  realized  how  powerfully  Philip  had  been  im 
pressed  by  the  cases  of  injustice  to  individuals  he 
had  mentioned,  and  how  great  had  been  his  sacri 
fice  for  conscience  sake.  The  kindly  gentleman 
was  nowon  familiar  ground, a  place  where  he  could 
minister  to  a  wounded  heart,  and,  in  his  supremely 
sympathetic  fashion,  he  spoke  such  words  of  com 
fort  and  cheer  as  seemed  best  to  fit  the  hour. 

Craig  listened  gratefully,  but  could  not  gain  any 
practical  solace  from  Mr.  Bentley's  well-meant 
efforts.  Moreover,  he  was  nervous  and  restless, 
and  felt  that  he  ought  to  be  where  he  could  receive 
Helen's  reply  as  soon  as  possible.  After  a  little,  he 
excused  himself  and  hurried  back  to  his  apart 
ments. 

Fie  had  been  home  scarcely  half  an  hour  when 
his  bell  rang  sharply.  In  a  delirium  of  impatience 
he  rushed  to  the  door  and  found  "Muggsy."  That 
small  Mercury  was  somewhat  astonished  to  be 
dragged  inside  with  no  gentle  hand. 

"Did  you  see  her?"  was  the  excited  query. 

"Yes,  sir,  just  after  luncheon.  She  was  alone, 
and  I  had  a  good  chance." 

"Yes,  yes.    Well?" 

"She  told  me  to  give  you  this,"  and  he  slowly 
brought  forth  the  envelope  that  Philip  knew  only 
too  well. 

"But  this  is  mine?"  he  exclaimed,  "and  un 
opened.  What  did  she  say?" 

207 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

For  once  "Muggsy"  appeared  perturbed.  He 
shifted  from  one  foot  to  the  other  and  searched  in 
his  coat  pocket  for  a  bit  of  his  beloved  cracked 
corn. 

"Out  with  it,  man  1" 

"Well,  sir,  she  says,  'Who  gave  you  this?'  I 
told  her,  and  then  she  says,  'Tell  Mr.  Craig  it  will 
be  useless  for  him  to  try  to  commun'cate  with  or 
see  me  again/  she  says." 

For  a  moment  Philip  staggered  as  from  a  ter 
rific  physical  blow.  Then  he  doubted  his  eyes,  his 
ears  and  even  "Muggsy's"  sanity.  He  plied  the 
young  man  with  questions,  only  to  find  the  bitter 
truth  still  more  clearly  revealed.  Helen  Norton, 
who  had  vowed  constancy  till  death,  was  already 
dead  to  him. 

He  hastily  pressed  a  bill  on  Bayles  and,  scarcely 
knowing  that  he  was  doing  so,  the  letter  as  well. 

"What  am  I  to  do  with  this,  sir?"  asked  the  boy. 

"Keep  it;  give  it  to  her  when  she  will  take  it," 
Philip  replied  with  a  harsh  laugh. 

In  his  agony  of  soul  he  paced  the  room  until 
the  very  walls  seemed  to  mock  at  him.  He  could 
endure  the  place  no  longer,  and  made  his  way  to 
the  street,  already  brilliant  with  the  tide  of  beauty 
and  fashion  at  its  afternoon  flood.  The  trappings 
of  wealth,  the  smug  complacency  of  the  well-born, 
the  insolence  of  liveried  flunkies — all  the  outward 
signs  of  a  luxury  that  counted  no  cost  of  treasure 
or  of  bloodz  exasperated  him  almost  to  frenzy. 
He  must  get  away  from  it,  or  he  would  do  some 
thing  he  would  regret;  that  much  he  could  com 
prehend. 

But  where  to  go?  He  walked  aimlessly,  as  a 
man  without  an  abiding-place,  accosted  now  and 

208 


BLOW  UPON  BLOW 

then  by  wretched  fellows  whose  mission  on  earth 
was  to  suck  the  blood  of  the  prosperous.  He  gave 
to  every  one  of  them,  vaguely  speculating  as  to 
the  places  they  called  home. 

Home!  Back  over  the  path  of  memory  went 
his  disordered  mind  to  the  house  of  his  boyhood, 
the  little  room  he  had  called  his  own,  the  fireside 
where  he  had  spent  his  winter  evenings  with  his 
books.  There  would  he  go,  to  the  stern  old  man 
who  had  said,  "When  ye  tire  o'  ye'er  friends  in 
Mammon,  coom  back."  In  the  little  cottage 
where  right  held  its  sway,  encompassed  as  it  was 
with  the  powers  of  darkness,  he  would  find  some 
thing  of  peace. 

When  he  reached  the  dismal  street  he  noticed 
with  apathetic  curiosity  that  workmen  were  en 
gaged  on  a  great  building  near  his  father's  house. 
He  could  scarcely  think  consecutively,  for  his  head 
was  hot  and  light  and  subject  to  a  strange  pres 
sure  from  within.  He  even  staggered  as  he 
walked,  so  that  one  of  the  stone  masons  nudged 
his  mate  and  laughed  significantly. 

"Gee,  Bill,  look  at  the  swell.  I  wish  I  had  half 
his  load." 

At  the  moment  of  his  passing  the  steam  derrick 
swinging  the  heavy  stone  on  which  the  men  had 
been  working  began  to  move  across  his  path. 

"Look  out,  there,"  cried  one  of  the  masons,  as 
Philip  took  a  step  or  two.  "My  God,  man,  look 
out !" 

He  heard  the  words  clearly  enough,  but  they 
had  no  meaning  for  him.  For  an  instant  he 
looked  about  in  dazed  surprise,  then  the  great 
block  swung  across  the  spot  where  he  had  stood 
and  left  him  prone  upon  the  sidewalk,  which  was 

209 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

dyed  by  the  blood  from  a  terrible  gash  in  his  head. 

Sympathetic  workmen  gathered  about  him,  with 
the  usual  helplessness  of  a  crowd,  and  almost  as 
soon  as  they  came  an  ambulance  from  the  nearest 
police  station.  As  the  surgeon  rose  from  his  ex 
amination  of  the  prostrate  form  he  shook  his  head 
gravely. 

"Does  anyone  here  know  this  man?"  he  asked. 

One  of  the  bystanders,  whose  seamed  and 
rugged  face  was  surmounted  with  a  tangled  mass 
of  reddish  gray  hair,  pushed  his  way  to  the  centre 
of  the  crowd  and  looked  down  into  the  still,  wrhite 
face  on  the  pavement. 

"I  ken  him,"  he  said,  quietly.     "He's  my  son." 

The  rest  gave  way  with  respectful  silence. 
Then,  at  the  old  Scotchman's  stern  command,  the 
limp  mass  of  what  had  a  moment  before  been  a 
handsome,  active  man  was  borne  tenderly  into  the 
little  cottage.  Philip  Craig  had  come  home,  in 
deed. 


210 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

A    SNAKE    IN    THE    GRASS. 

A  HALF  hour  after  Philip  Craig  had  left 
John  Norton's  office  forever,  Andrew 
Haven  came  into  it,  filled  with  satisfaction, 
because  he  knew  from  experience  that  a  peremp 
tory  summons  generally  meant  profitable  activity 
for  himself.  And  although  the  great  man  was  out 
wardly  as  calm  as  ever,  the  keen-scented  old 
sycophant  knew  at  once  that  some  disturbing 
event  had  happened;  he  had  not  studied  in  vain 
the  patron  in  whose  grip  he  had  been  for  many 
years. 

Norton  lost  no  time  in  turning  over  the  carry 
ing  out  of  several  business  projects  to  Haven,  and, 
much  as  that  sleek  individual  wondered,  he  re 
ceived  the  commissions  with  glee,  and  held  his 
peace.  He  was  not  given  to  irritating  his  chief 
with  questions. 

But  when  the  Onometer  deal  was  given  into  his 
charge  with  instructions  to  put  it  through  at  once, 
Haven  could  refrain  no  longer. 

"You'll  pardon  me,  I  am  sure,"  he  said  in  his 
most  deprecatory  manner,  "but  I  thought  that 
matter  was  entirely  in  Mr.  Craig's  hands." 

"Mr.  Craig  is  no  longer  associated  with  my 
affairs,"  returned  Norton,  without  looking  up 
from  his  paper. 

A  gleam  of  sinister  delight  came  into  Haven's 
211 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

little  eyes,  and  whatever  passed  for  his  heart  gave 
a  bound  of  triumph.  He  had  hated  Craig  with  a 
hatred  all  the  more  bitter  because  it  was  secret, 
ever  since  it  was  apparent  that  the  young  man 
stood  closer  to  the  throne  of  finance  than  he  could 
ever  hope  to  be.  His  envy  had  been  well  masked 
under  a  show  of  friendship,  for  he  feared  the 
strong  and  earnest  character  of  his  rival.  But  now 
that  his  path  was  clearer  than  it  had  ever  been,  he 
could  have  cried  aloud  for  joy.  Instead  he  only 
ventured  to  say,  with  an  affectation  of  well-bred 
surprise :  "Indeed  ?  I  thought — " 

"No  matter  what  you  thought.  He  and  I  did 
not- -agree." 

"I  cannot  say  how  deeply  I  regret — " 

"You  needn't  regret,"  returned  Norton,  with 
his  hard  smile.  "It  will  profit  you,  I  daresay,  well 
enough." 

"Oh,  I — I — pray  allow  me — but  I  thought 
Craig  a  very  capable  young  man,  even  if — if  some 
what  addicted  to  the  habit  of  advancing  his  own 
ideas  in  preference  to  yours." 

"Oh,  you  saw  that,  did  you?  Little  ever 
escapes  you,  I  fancy,  Andrew." 

Haven  disliked  hearing  his  own  praises  sung 
when  they  took  a  certain  tone,  and  he  now 
changed  the  subject  somewhat. 

"You'll  pardon  me,  Norton — liberty  of  an  old 
friend,  you  know — but  Miss  Helen?" 

"So  you  know  that,  too?  Perhaps  you  can  help 
me  there.  It  will  be  a  blow  to  Helen.  I  regret  it, 
but  she  has  enough  of  her  father  in  her  to  endure 
disappointment." 

"Especially  when  she  knows  he  is  unworthy," 
insinuated  Haven. 

212 


A   SNAKE  IN   THE  GRASS 

"Just  so.  Look  here,  Haven,  you  are  not  averse 
to  lying — curb  your  indignation — in  a  good  cause, 
of  course.  Well,  anyway,  you  never  saw  any  good 
in  Craig." 

"Why,  as  to  that — "  and  the  little  man  shrugged 
his  shoulders  eloquently. 

"I  shall  tell  Helen  to-night  that  all  must  end 
between  them,"  continued  "John  Peter."  "I  shall 
simply  say  the  truth — that  he  is  not  the  man  I 
thought  him.  If  opportunity  presents,  you  can 
drive  the  wedge  home  with — well,  with  whatever 
suggests  itself." 

"Why,  I  am  sincerely  sorry  for  Miss  Helen," 
Haven  said  glibly,  "and  of  course  I  will  do  any 
thing  I  can." 

With  that  promise,  which  his  little  soul  was 
eager  enough  to  fulfil,  Haven  left  the  presence  of 
his  chief,  brimming  over  with  happiness.  Had  he 
seen  the  look  of  contempt  Norton  cast  after  him, 
he  might  not  have  walked  through  the  clerks'  de 
partment  with  an  air  of  self-confidence  quite  for 
eign  to  his  usual  apologetic  demeanor.  He  was 
noticed,  as  he  intended  to  be. 

"Guess  Andrew's  struck  something  rich  from 
the  old  man,"  observed  the  head  bookkeeper  to  his 
assistant.  "Never  saw  him  look  so  cocky  in  my 
life." 

"H'mph  !  More  likely  the  chief's  pulled  him  out 
of  another  big  hole.  Lord,  what  luck  some  men 

do  have !" 

*       *       *       * 

Late  that  afternoon,  Mrs.  Norton,  after  a  brief 
interview  with  her  husband,  sent  word  to  Helen  to 
come  to  her  boudoir.  Her  gentle  nature  shrank 
from  the  task  Norton  had  imposed  upon  her,  but 

213 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

his  word  was  law,  as  always,  and,  too,  her  implicit 
faith  in  his  judgment  made  her  feel  that  in  this 
case  he  must  be  right. 

As  tenderly  as  possible  she  broke  the  news  to 
the  girl,  who  came  in  radiant  from  a  brisk  walk  in 
the  great  park  near  by.  The  sunny  face  and  happy 
eyes  struck  a  pang  to  the  mother's  heart.  She 
knew  too  well  how  soon  the  light  would  be 
quenched,  and  the  smiling  mouth  droop  into 
curves  of  sadness. 

Little  by  little,  and  with  infinite  tenderness,  she 
drew  the  talk  away  from  other  things  to  the  sub 
ject  of  Craig  and  their  love.  Thus  far  the  task  was 
easy,  for  the  girl's  heart  seconded  the  mother's 
speech  with  an  enthusiasm  that  revealed  her  feel 
ings  completely.  Mrs.  Norton  sighed;  the  altar- 
fires  of  her  own  affection  were  still  warm,  and  she 
realized  the  pain  that  she  was  to  inflict. 

"Of  course  you  know,  Helen,"  she  said,  "that 
my  endorsement  of  your  engagement  was  subject 
to  your  father's  approval  ?" 

The  girl's  quick  instinct  took  alarm,  as  a  wild 
doe's  at  the  hearing  of  some  unusual  note  in 
nature. 

"Why,  yes,  of  course,  mamma,"  she  replied, 
"and  he  does  approve.  At  least  it  seemed  so  last 
night — when  he  knew." 

"He  did  approve,  dear,  but  many  things  may 
happen  in  a  few  hours." 

"Happen?    But  not — not—" 

"Helen,  child,  it  wounds  me  deeply  to  say  it, 
but  you  must  cease  to  think  of  Philip  any  more." 

The  blue  eyes  dilated  with  wonder  and  the  color 
left  the  rounded  cheeks.  The  girl  for  a  moment 


214 


A   SNAKE  IN   THE  GRASS 

seemed  not  to  understand  her  mother's  words, 
then  burst  forth  indignantly: — 

"It  can't  be  true !" 

"It  is  true,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Norton,  gently. 
"Mr.  Craig  is  a  different  man  from  what  your 
father  thought.  So  far  different  is  he  that  your 
father  has  been  compelled  to  sever  business  rela 
tions  with  him." 

"Because  he — because  he  loved  me?"  asked  the 
mystified  girl. 

"No,  no,  dearest,  of  course  not  that.  Your 
father  had  promised  you  to  him  in  two  years  if  he 
proved  worthy." 

"And  how  has  he  proved  otherwise?" 

"I  can  only  tell  you  what  your  father  says — that 
he  has  been  a  terrible  disappointment  to  him ;  that 
they  separated  because  Mr.  Craig  attempted — but 
why  should  I  tell  you?  It  would  only  cause  you 
pain." 

Helen  stood  up  proudly  and  looked  straight  at 
her  mother's  kindly  eyes  with  an  expression  the 
elder  woman  had  never  seen  on  her  face  before. 
At  that  instant  she  seemed  to  drop  the  spiritual 
garb  of  girlhood. 

"It  is  my  right  to  know,"  she  said,  firmly. 
"You  say  I  must  never  see  the  man  I  love  again, 
but  you  do  not  tell  me  why.  You  are  cruel," 

"My  dear,"  replied  the  distressed  mother,  "it 
wrings  my  heart  to  be  the  bearer  of  such  news. 
Heaven  knows  I  wish  it  were  another's  duty.  But 
you  know  your  father  liked  him,  had  advanced 
him  to  a  very  high  position,  and  intended  to  make 
him  his  successor." 

"But  how— why— " 

"I  can  only  tell  you  that  he  insulted  your  father, 
215 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

and  refused  absolutely  to  do  his  duty.  There  was 
more,  but  what,  your  father  would  not  tell  even 
me." 

Helen  would  hear  no  more.  Full  of  the  sense  of 
outraged  justice,  of  wounded  love,  of  passionate 
pride  in  her  devotion,  she  hurried  to  her  own  room 
and  threw  herself  upon  her  bed.  Then  came  the 
gift  of  tears,  those  divine  streams  upon  which  flow 
away  so  much  of  the  bitterness  of  suffering. 

But  young  hearts  weep  briefly,  and  soon 
Helen's  strength  of  nature  asserted  itself.  She 
rose  and  bathed  her  eyes,  full  of  a  strong  determina 
tion  not  to  submit  tamely  to  what  she  believed  to 
be  a  great  wrong.  And  as  a  first  step  she  must  get 
word  to  Philip,  must  assure  him  that  her  love  was 
as  warm  and  true  as  ever.  She  wrote  a  letter  of 
ardent  affection,  promising  that  whatever  had 
happened  he  should  be  allowed  to  speak  for  him 
self. 

She  thrust  the  note  into  the  bosom  of  her  dress, 
and  went  to  find  a  safe  messenger.  "Muggsy" 
Bayles  was  unquestionably  the  right  person,  but 
on  inquiring  as  to  his  whereabouts,  she  found  that 
he  was  out;  was,  in  fact,  coming  to  the  house. 
She  summoned  all  her  patience  to  await  his  ar 
rival. 

In  the  hall  she  met  Mr.  Andrew  Haven,  who 
greeted  her  with  effusive  ceremony.  He  had  come 
to  see  her  father,  he  said,  but  had  found  him  en 
gaged,  and  must  wait.  He  would  go  into  the 
reception  room,  if  he  might  be  permitted,  and  stay 
until  his  chief  was  at  leisure. 

Scarcely  knowing  why  she  did  so,  Helen  fol 
lowed  the  meek  little  man  into  the  beautiful  apart 
ment  and  sat  down.  He  seemed  so  embarrassed, 

216 


A   SNAKE  IN  THE  GRASS 

so  fearful  of  incommoding  anyone  in  the  establish 
ment  that  her  girlish  heart  actually  pitied  him. 
She  talked  of  the  things  she  thought  might  inter 
est  him,  and  inevitably  her  father's  business  at  last 
came  to  their  tongues. 

"I  was  greatly  surprised  to-day,"  ventured 
Haven,  "to  learn  that  Mr.  Craig  had  left  your 
father." 

A  fortunate  incident,  thought  Helen.  Here 
was  a  man  who  could  perhaps  shed  more  light  on 
the  darkness  than  her  mother  had  been  able  to  do. 
With  innocent  duplicity  she  remarked  quite  casu 
ally  :— 

''I  suppose  you  were.  You  and  Phi — Mr.  Craig 
— were  good  friends,  were  you  not  ?" 

Haven  chuckled  inwardly  at  the  simplicity  of 
the  idea;  it  was  very  amusing,  but  he  believed  it 
best  not  to  undeceive  the  girl. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  he  replied,  warmly.  "I  may  say 
that — next  to  your  father  and,  of  course,  yourself 
— T  was  his  best  friend.  I  regret  this  episode  ex 
ceedingly,  and  I  am  greatly  disappointed.  I  had 
expected  a  bright  future  for  Philip." 

"To  what  do  you  attribute  the  trouble?"  asked 
Helen,  in  as  matter-of-fact  a  tone  as  she  could. 

His  knowledge  of  the  matter  was  less  than  her 
own,  but  timorous  as  he  v/as  in  many  ways,  he  was 
never  at  loss  for  an  answer.  His  agile  mind  had 
already  mapped  out  a  course  of  action,  and  he  pro 
ceeded  upon  it  with  the  sublime  confidence  of  a 
marplot. 

"I  believe  that  the  free  rein  given  him  during 
your  father's  absence  rather  unbalanced  him,  and 
he  refused  to  accept  his  control  on  his  return." 

A  swift  gesture  of  disbelief  on  Helen's  part  did 
217 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

not  escape  his  notice,  and  he  hastened  to  qualify 
his  remarks. 

"But  he  is  young  and  ambitious,  and — well,  I 
liked  him,  you  know." 

To  the  young  girl's  sensitive  mind  this  friendly 
little  person  seemed  almost  an  angelic  messenger, 
a  being  sent  by  providence  to  take  her  words  of 
cheer  to  the  one  she  loved.  Haste,  she  felt,  was 
necessary,  for  she  thought  she  heard  some  one 
approaching.  With  sweet  and  maidenly  impul 
siveness  that  would  have  touched  a  nobler  man 
deeply,  she  drew  the  letter  from  her  bosom  and 
thrust  it  into  Haven's  fat  and  nerveless  hands. 

"Mr.  Haven,  you  are  a  friend  of  Philip,  and  of 
me,  too,"  she  said,  rapidly.  "You  must  know  that 
we — are  very  dear  to  each  other.  I  have  only  just 
been  told  that  I  must  see  him  no  more.  It  is  es 
sential  to  his  happiness  and  to  mine  that  I  hear 
what  he  has  to  say.  This  letter — will  you  take  it 
to  him?" 

With  all  his  cleverness  at  rapid  decisions,  An 
drew  Haven  found  himself  deliberating.  He  had 
not  counted  on  a  confidence  that  would  make  him 
a  messenger  of  love.  His  first  thought  was  to  take 
the  letter  and  destroy  it,  but  immediately  he  real 
ized  that  this  was  a  threadbare  ruse,  and  easily 
brought  home  to  him.  He  withdrew  his  hand, 
leaving  the  missive  in  the  girl's  own. 

"No,  no,  I  cannot  take  it,"  he  declared. 

"\Vhy  not?    He  is  your  friend." 

"But  so  is  your  father — and  he— 

"And  7  am  your  friend,"  continued  Helen,  tri 
umphantly.  "We  are  two  to  one !" 

Just  here  a  splendid  thought  flashed  into 
Haven's  brain.  This  was  the  very  moment  to 

218 


A   SNAKE  IN  THE  GRASS 

strike — to  do  Norton  the  service  he  had  promised, 
as  well  as  to  make  full  repayment  for  the  cold  con 
tempt  with  which  Craig  had  dismissed  him  when 
he  took  from  his  hands  that  matter  with  which  his 
chief  had  entrusted  him. 

"No,  Miss  Norton,"  he  exclaimed,  "I  cannot 
take  it.  I  did  admire  Mr.  Craig — I  half  like  the 
fellow  now.  It's  hard,  you  know,  to  totally  for 
sake  a  friend.  But  he — he  is — well,  he  has  no 
right  to  receive  a  note  from  you." 

"Explain,"  commanded  the  girl,  a  bright  spot 
glowing  in  either  cheek.  "An  explanation  is  cer 
tainly  my  right." 

"My  dear  young  lady,  I  am  not  the  one  to  ask. 
Your  father  or  your  mother  would — " 

"It  is  you  who  have  said  this;  why?" 

"Well,  I  understand — that  is,  I  know — that  the 
disagreement  between  Mr.  Craig  and  your  father 
was  because — because  of  you." 

"Yes;  go  on." 

"Well,  the  fact  is  Mr.  Craig  insisted  on  an  im 
mediate  marriage  with  you." 

"Yes."  vShe  spoke  with  a  great  thrill  of  pride 
and  loyalty.  That  was  not  a  fault,  at  any  rate. 

"And  then,"  continued  Haven,  "when  your 
father  insisted  upon  a  year  or  two  of  delay,  Mr. 
Craig  said  he  would  not  wait — that — you  must 
really  pardon  me — that  immediate  marriage  with 
you  was  necessary  to  establish  his  credit  in  some 
enormous  outside  deal  he  had  in  hand." 

A  little  sound  as  of  a  gasp  for  breath  told  him 
that  the  shot  had  gone  home,  and  he  continued  : — 

"And  he  demanded  either  immediate  marriage 
with  a  half  interest  in  the  business  or  a  large  sum 

219 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

of  money — as  an  indemnity,  I  presume.    There,  I 
have  told  you,  and  I — " 

His  inveterate  habit  of  proffering  sympathy 
would  have  led  him  to  utter  a  soothing  phrase  of 
some  sortj  but  that  something  in  Helen's  face 
awed  him. 

"I  have  told  you  what  I  know/'  he  pursued, 
"and  I  trust  vou  will  forgive  the  pain  I  have  caused 
you." 

"I  am  your  debtor,  Mr.  Haven,"  replied  Helen, 
coldly.  "We  have  indeed  been  mistaken  in  him. 
This  note,  of  course,  will  not  be  delivered."  And 
she  walked  out  haughtily,  tearing  the  paper  into 
fragments  as  she  went. 

Haven  looked  after  her  with  admiration  in  his 
sharp  little  eyes.  "A  chip  of  the  old  block,"  he 
thought,  "a  girl  among  a  thousand."  Then  self, 
his  greater  idol,  rose  uppermost.  "I  think,"  he 
said,  with  a  smile,  "that  John  Norton  owes  me 
more  than  thanks." 

In  her  own  room,  tearless  and  hardened,  Helen 
set  about  destroying  the  mementos  of  an  affec 
tion  that  now  seemed  like  a  mockery  of  sentiment, 
a  travesty  of  nature's  sweetest  impulse.  Love's 
bruised  wings  would  never  hover  over  her  again, 
she  was  sure,  nor  would  her  nature  ever  recover 
from  the  shock  of  the  day's  revelation.  But  her 
wound  must  be  hidden ;  neither  curiosity  nor  com 
passion  should  touch  it  or  have  any  share  in  mak 
ing  it  rankle  beyond  its  natural  smart. 

Next  day  she  wore  the  perfect  mask  of  calmness, 
and  no  one  heard  her  mention  Philip  Craig's 
name,  except  "Muggsy"  Bayles,  when  he  came,  in 
the  honesty  of  his  devotion,  to  attempt  to  deliver 
his  ill-fated  letter. 

220 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

A    PLEDGE    TO    THE    DEAD. 

THE  house  of  Angus  Craig  stood  bravely 
against  the  shocks  of  time,  and  yet  it  bore 
the  scars  of  a  conflict  that  was  not  wholly 
due  to  the  lapse  of  many  days.  Something  new 
had  set  its  impress  of  ruin  and  decay  about  its 
once  trim  exterior.  A  suggestion  of  unkempt- 
ness  and  neglect  was  found  in  its  worn  paint,  its 
shabby,  ill-hanging  blinds,  its  broken  window- 
•  panes  pathetically  stuffed  with  whatever  had  been 
nearest  to  hand.  Even  the  snow  that  covered  the 
ground  on  a  crisp  evening  long  after  the  acci 
dent  to  Philip  could  not  hide  the  dilapidation  that 
had  set  in,  for  the  once  well-kept  fence  had  lost 
many  a  paling,  and  the  gate  creaked  mournfully 
on  one  hinge. 

Within  were  the  same  tokens  of  degeneration. 
The  furniture  was  more  sparse  and  of  far  poorer 
quality  than  of  yore,  for  the  fine  old  mahogany 
pieces  that  had  lent  an  air  of  distinction  to  the 
humble  sitting-room  were  no  longer  to  be  seen. 
Even  the  honest  Scotch  carpet  had  given  way  to  a 
few  cheap  and  dingy  rugs. 

The  lone  figure  that  sat  toiling  under  the  light 
of  a  feeble  lamp  seemed  in  keeping  with  its  sur 
roundings.  Not  that  Angus  Craig  had  aged  in 
appearance  during  the  more  than  two  years  since 
his  son  had  been  brought  into  the  cottage  a  help- 

221 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

less  wreck ;  instead,  it  seemed  as  if  he  had  grown 
younger,  for  the  new  and  deep  lines  that  care  had 
set  about  his  mouth  bespoke  the  vigor  of  more 
youthful  days.  But  his  clothing  was  poor  and 
worn,  and  his  general  appearance  that  of  a  man 
who  had  been  fighting  with  poverty  and  had  lost. 

Angus  threw  down  his  graver's  tools  with  a 
deep  sigh. 

"There,  I'll  work  nae  mair  the  nicht.  My 
auld  eyes'll  not  stand  it.  For  such  trumpery,  too. 
Imph!" 

He  disdainfully  surveyed  the  work  on  which  he 
had  been  engaged,  a  beautiful  bit  of  wood-engrav 
ing,  the  miniature  head  of  one  of  the  great  com 
posers  of  a  past  age. 

"Four  gude  hours  gane  into  that  bawbie,  an' 
they'll  probably  offer  me  a  dollar  for  it  to-morrow. 
I'll  be  ower  lucky  if  I  get  a  dollar  and  a  quarter." 

He  went  to  the  window  and  peered  out  into  the 
white  night. 

"Nae  signs  o'  them,"  he  said,  and  turned  to  put 
a  pathetically  small  bit  of  fuel  on  the  dying  fire. 

As  he  knelt  to  straighten  the  andirons,  a  dull 
clangor,  like  the  stertorous  breathingof  a  distressed 
giant,  came  to  his  ears.  He  raised  his  head  with 
a  proud  gesture  of  triumph  and  defiance,  and  his 
eyes  glowed  under  his  shaggy  brows. 

"Aye,  thump  on,  day  and  nicht,  ye  everlastin' 
machines,  poundin'  awa'  the  heart-beats  o'  the 
slaves  that  tend  ye.  But  ye  didna  drive  the  auld 
mon  frae  his  hame  wi'  a'  ye'er  din." 

A  resounding  knock  at  the  outside  door 
brought  the  Scotchman  to  his  feet  in  a  hurry. 
Then,  with  a  great  gush  of  cold  air  and  a  stamp- 

222 


A  PLEDGE  TO  THE  DEAD 

ing  of  feet,  entered  Joseph  Langmaid  and  Luke 
Ford. 

Time  had  treated  these  two  worthies  with  a 
lenient  hand.  Langmaid  was  no  more  grizzled 
nor  weazened  than  before,  and  his  sonorous  voice 
was  even  more  impressive.  His  rapid  glance 
shifted  from  point  to  point  in  the  room  as  he  re 
turned  his  host's  greeting  with  a  grandiloquent 
phrase  expressing  confusion  to  capital.  Then  he 
pulled  out  an  enormous  meerschaum  pipe,  lighted 
it,  and  sat  down  to  read  a  newspaper  in  which  an 
article  of  his  own  had  that  day  appeared. 

Ford  had  actually  improved  in  two  years.  His 
lank  frame  had  filled  out  somewhat  and  he  stood 
straighter,  as  if  prepared  to  meet  the  world  in  any 
sort  of  combat.  His  old-time  taciturnity  had  not 
wholly  left  him,  but  it  was  to  be  noticed  that  when 
he  now  advanced  a  proposition  he  generally  com 
pleted  it,  and  was  not  afraid  of  giving  words  to  the 
radical  thoughts  that  were  in  him.  He  had  not 
lost  his  love  for  tobacco,  and  was  even  now  masti 
cating  that  solacing  substance  with  a  swinging 
movement  of  his  powerful  jaws.  While  waiting 
for  the  completion  of  their  usual  party  he  took  out 
a  tablet  and  began  to  write  rapidly. 

Silently  Angus  sat  and  watched  them,  gently 
swaying  back  and  forth  in  his  rocking-chair.  He 
would  have  preferred  rest  and  quiet  to-night,  but 
it  was  the  stated  time  for  the  "meetin',"  and  per 
sonal  comfort  must  not  oppose  itself  to  the  an 
cient  habit. 

Not  long  after  the  arrival  of  these  two  came 
another  knock,  deferential,  not  to  say  timorous. 

"Wha  can  that  be?"  said  Angus.  His  cronies 
were  not  in  the  habit  of  announcing  themselves 

223 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

with  any  lack  of  confidence,  and  he  was  suspicious 
of  all  other  callers.  He  went  to  the  door  and 
peered  cautiously  out. 

"Bless  my  soul,  but  it's  Geoffrey,"  he  exclaimed, 
petulantly.  "Coom  in,  mon,  coom  in,  and  na' 
stand  there  like  a  stoat-in-bottle." 

Thus  adjured,  the  rotund  Englishman  shambled 
into  the  lamp-light,  followed  briskly  by  his  spouse, 
whose  black  eyes  snapped  and  whose  ruddy  face 
glowed  ruddily  from  the  cold.  The  lady  looked 
about  her,  and  bowed  with  little,  jerky  inclinations 
as  she  was  introduced  to  the  others. 

"Ye  see,  boys,"  explained  the  somewhat  uneasy 
Geoffrey,  "the  missus  thought  she'd  like  to  come 
to-night.  I've  told  her — " 

"Yes,  he's  told  me  how  you  sit  here  night  after 
night  and  discuss  problems.  As  far  as  I  can  see 
you  do  nothing  but  waste  time  and  light.  I 
thought  perhaps  a  woman  might  find  some  thread 
in  your  skein  of  theory  that  she  could  pull  out  for 
practical  use." 

Thus  spoke  the  energetic  woman  of  affairs, 
whom  Angus  Craig  forthwith  welcomed  with  a 
gentle  courtesy  that  made  his  cronies  stare;  they 
little  knew  how  the  most  self-assertive  member  of 
the  feminine  clan  was  able  to  arouse  tenderness 
in  the  gnarly  old  Scot.  There  were  many  things 
in  his  curiously  complex  inner  nature  that  would 
have  astonished  them  still  more,  could  they  have 
been  possessed  of  some  magic  reading-glass. 

Mrs.  Fairbrother's  loquacity  found  a  pleasurable 
outlet  in  this  assemblage  of  mere  men,  and  she 
took  woman's  advantage  of  her  superiority.  Para 
doxically,  she  gave  her  opinion  as  to  the  useless- 
ness  of  talk,  reminding  her  hearers  very  pointedly 

224 


A  PLEDGE  TO   THE  DEAD 

that  wasted  breath  never  coined  dollars.  She  even 
glanced  critically  about  at  the  sorrowfully  shabby 
room,  and  shook  her  plumed  head  significantly. 

"And  you,  Mr.  Craig —  '  she  said,  effusively, 
"the  world  doesn't  seem  to  be  using  you  very  well 
— that  is,  judging  from  what  Geoff  used  to  tell  me 
of  your  comfortable  home." 

Unmindful  of  her  abashed  husband's  tug  at  her 
arm,  Mrs.  Fairbrother  proceeded  to  take  off  her 
immense  fur  cloak  and  sink  into  the  most  comfort 
able  chair  she  could  find.  Nor  did  she  cease  her 
monologue. 

"When  I  saw  you  last,"  she  ran  on,  "you  looked 
fairly  prosperous,  but  now — "  she  shrugged  her 
shoulders  with  thinly  veiled  contempt,  for  she  had 
no  patience  with  poverty.  "That  son  of  yours 
seems  to  have  brought  you  no  luck." 

Old  Angus'  thin  face  flushed  slightly,  but  he 
gave  no  other  sign  of  vexation.  Instead,  he  raised 
a  warning  finger. 

"Hush,  Mrs.  Fairbrother,  I  beg  o'  ye,"  he  en 
treated.  "Philip's  in  the  room  above,  an'  may 
hear  ye." 

"I'm  sure  it  might  do  him  good  if  he  did,"  she 
declared.  But  her  voice  lowered  noticeably. 

The  three  callers  looked  at  one  another  aghast, 
and  to  hide  his  confusion  at  his  wife's  rudeness, 
Geoffrey  ventured  to  ask :  "How  is  Philip  getting 
along,  Angus?" 

"Weel ;  verra  weel,"  returned  the  old  man, 
brightening.  "The  doctor  says  he  may  coom 
downstairs  whenever  he  pleases  the  noo,  but — I've 
not  tauld  him — he  doesna  ken — " 

He  looked  sadly  about  the  denuded  and  cheer 
less  room,  and  a  mist  came  over  his  wearied  eyes. 

225 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Poverty,  privation,  discomfort — what  were  they 
for  him  to  bear  ?  It  was  only  when  he  beheld  the 
shining  opulence  of  the  rich  that  he  felt  his  gorge 
rise,  for  the  bitterness  of  sight  is  often  more  potent 
than  the  bitterness  of  suffering.  But  the  thought 
that  his  son  must  find  him  sunk  so  low  among  his 
fellows,  stripped  of  the  power  to  command  a  de 
cent  livelihood,  cut  him  to  the  quick. 

"M'm,"  said  Mrs.  Fairbrother,  reflectively,  "so 
he  hasn't  been  from  his  room  in — how  long  has  it 
been?" 

"Two  years  last  October/'  Angus  replied. 

As  he  disappeared  into  the  kitchen  to  bring 
another  lamp,  the  woman  turned  to  the  others. 

"Two  years  for  a — a  blow  in  the  head,  wasn't 
it?"  she  remarked,  incredulously.  Like  poverty, 
illness,  too,  aroused  her  suspicious  antagonism. 

"Now  lookee  here,  Jane,"  protested  her  fat, 
good-natured  husband,  "I  told  you  all  about  it, 
don't  you  know?  To  be  sure  'twas  an  injury  in 
the  head,  but  Philip  had  brain  fever,  too,  and  some 
hurt  to  his  spine  that  kept  the  poor  chap  from 
walking.  It's  been  a  hard  rub  for  both  of  'em,  and 
you  ought  to  be  more  considerate." 

It  was  Mrs.  Fairbrother's  settled  policy  to  re 
ceive  all  marital  suggestions  as  to  her  duty  in  any 
particular  contingency  with  silent  contempt.  So 
she  continued  on  the  even  tenor  of  her  remarks. 

"Yes,  I  believe  you  did  tell  me,  but  about  that 
time  I  went  into  that  F.  &  B.  deal — "  Here  came 
certain  muttering  which  in  any  other  than  a 
woman  of  some  financial  standing  might  have 
sounded  vastly  like  imprecations.  The  florid  lady 
had  good  reason  to  remember  the  "F.  &  B.  deal" 
with  reviling,  for  by  it  she  had  lost  heavily — many 

226 


A  PLEDGE  TO  THE  DEAD 

thousands,  rumor  said.  She  had  been  led  into  the 
scheme  by  a  couple  of  persuasively  eloquent  brok 
ers,  who  frankly  admitted  that  it  was  a  bit  "off 
color''  and  that  the  people  on  the  other  end  would 
get  squeezed.  This  description  troubled  Mrs. 
Fairbrother  very  little,  but  later  when  she  woke  up 
one  morning  to  find  herself  on  the  "other  end," 
and  "squeezed"  to  a  very  lively  tune,  her  righteous 
indignation  knew  no  bounds. 

In  her  novel  state  of  mind  she  listened  with 
awakening  interest  to  Geoffrey's  accounts  of  the 
meetings  at  Angus  Craig's,  where,  according  to 
him,  plans  were  being  formulated  as  to  how  the 
wrorld  could  be  relieved  from  the  "tyranny  of  great 
wealth."  She  had  just  begun  to  suspect  that  she 
herself  stood  in  need  of  protection. 

But  however  much  she  enjoyed  her  visit,  the 
four  old  cronies  passed  an  uncomfortable  evening 
indeed.  She  disputed  their  every  proposition  in  a 
very  loud  voice,  and  when  logic  failed  her,  jeered 
and  pooh-poohed  in  a  manner  that  admitted  of  no 
adequate  reply.  It  was  not  long  before  Ford  and 
Langmaicl  retired  in  disgust  and  silent  wrath. 
Soon  after,  Fairbrother  also  rose  to  depart. 

On  the  way  out  the  hearty  old  fellow  hurriedly 
whispered  an  apology  to  Angus  for  the  trouble  he 
felt  he  had  caused.  He  was  reassured  by  a  pres 
sure  of  the  hand  that  told  him  his  standing  was 
still  secure. 

Craig  stood  in  the  open  doorway  for  a  moment, 
drinking  in  the  clear,  cold  air.  He  looked  up  at 
the  brilliant  stars  with  infinite  longing.  In  their 
cold  scintillations  there  seemed  to  be  more  sym 
pathy  with  his  distressed  soul  than  in  the  human 
lights  about  him,  mellow  shafts  from  the  great 

227 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

mills  by  which  the  cottage  was  now  engulfed. 
Here  in  the  open  came  the  clang-clang  of  the  piti 
less  machinery,  loud  and  disturbing.  Angus  shut 
the  door  angrily,  and  went  back  to  his  sitting 
room  to  prepare  for  the  night. 

On  the  threshold  he  stepped  back  with  a  startled 
cry,  for  there  in  the  opposite  doorway,  pale  and 
thin  and  trembling,  stood  his  son. 

"Yes,  it  is  I,  father,"  Philip  said,  with  a  faint 
smile. 

"How  dared  ye  try  tae  leave  ye'er  room?"  the 
old  man  asked. 

"I  heard  what  that — that  woman  said." 

He  staggered  and  would  have  fallen,  but  for  the 
two  strong  canes  he  carried. 

"Please  help  me  to  a  chair,"  he  said  in  a  thin, 
faltering  voice,  so  wofully  changed  from  the  reso 
nant  tones  of  other  days.  "Really,  you  are  not 
courteous  to  your  visitors." 

The  old  man's  strong  arms  led  him  safely  to  a 
seat.  Angus  looked  down  at  him  with  a  great 
misgiving. 

"I  fear,  lad,  ye'll  have  owerdone  yersel',"  he  ex 
claimed. 

"No ;  I  feel  that  my  long  vigil  is  nearly  over,  and 
that,  thanks  to  you  and  Doctor  Blake,  I  shall  soon 
be  a  man  among  men  again." 

"God  grant,"  said  Angus,  fervently. 

To  Philip's  eyes,  made  all  the  keener  by  the 
weary  months  of  utter  helplessness,  months  that 
had  quickened  his  spiritual  and  mental  vision  and 
had  given  him  a  mental  grasp  he  had  never  known 
before,  the  altered  aspect  of  the  room  told  its  story 
with  sad  emphasis. 

228 


A  PLEDGE  TO   THE  DEAD 

"You  have  suft'ered,  father,"  he  said,  reproach 
fully,  "and  yon  never  told  me." 

''How  could  I,  boy,  as  you — as  you  were?" 

Philip  thought  with  gladness  that  the  change 
in  the  physical  appearance  of  things,  great  as  it 
was.  seemed  less  than  the  alteration  in  his  father's 
attitude  toward  himself.  It  was  wonderful  to  see 
this  rugged  man,  who  had  formerly  delighted  to 
play  the  tyrant  over  his  son,  now  almost  suppliant 
before  the  helpless  invalid. 

"Tell  me  now,  then,"  said  Philip,  "everything. 
Oh,  I  am  strong  enough,"  he  added,  as  he  read 
anxious  hesitancy  on  his  father's  face.  "Go  on." 

"Weel,  then,  if  ye  must  ken — an'  I  suppose  it's 
best,  for  ye  ken  something's  wrang,  o'  course — I 
lost  my  place  two  year  ago." 

"How?    Because  of  me?" 

"Because  o'  ye?  Why,  no,  mon.  What  put 
that  idea  into  ye'er  head?  I  was — accused  o' 
thievin'." 

"Father!" 

"It's  true.  Some  stock  certeeficate  it  was.  I 
had  engraved  the  plate,  an'  it  was  brought  back  for 
an  alteration.  Some  impressions  o'  the  plate — all 
signed,  they  said,  before  the  changes  were  decided 
on — -were  in  the  package,  an'  I  returned  them  wi' 
the  plate.  Afterward,  it  seems,  three  o'  the  cer- 
teeficates  were  put  on  the  market,  an' — an' — " 

The  old  man  broke  down  with  the  recollection. 
To  an  honest  soul  accusation  is  as  terrible  as  crime 
itself,  and  Angus  felt  anew  all  the  agony  of  the  stab 
as  he  laid  his  bosom  bare  to  his  son. 

"And  you  were  accused,"  said  Philip.  "The 
outrage  of  it!  How  dared  they?  They  knew  at 
the  plant  that  you  couldn't  do  such  a  thing!" 

229 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Oh,  aye,  they  kenned  it  vveel  enow— or,  at 
least,  I  think  they  thocht  so.  But  I  was  the  only 
mon  who  had  touched  the  package,  except  the 
superintendent,  an'  he  didna  open  it.  An'  ye  see 
this  Andrew  Haven  was  a  big  customer — what's 
the  matter,  Philip?" 

"Nothing,"  replied  the  son,  whose  clenched 
hands  shook  nervously  at  the  sound  of  the  name, 
"only  a  twinge.  There,  I'm  all  right,  again. 
What  did  you  say  the — customer's  name  was?" 

"Andrew  Haven.  An'  strange  tae  say,  lad,  he 
was  the  mon  who  was  president  o'  the  watch  com 
pany  that  rewarded  me  so  muneeficently — you 
remember — for  my  loyalty."  He  laughed  sar 
donically. 

Andrew  Haven !  But  it  might  be  a  coincidence, 
Philip  thought,  for  the  world  was  made  up  of 
them.  He  tried  to  steady  his  voice  as  he  asked : — 

"What  were  the  certificates?" 

"A  new  issue  of  stock  in  the  Onometer  Com 
pany." 

It  was  true,  then.  And  spite  of  all,  it  was 
through  the  man  he  had  despised  and  John  Nor 
ton  that  his  honest  father  had  been  brought  low. 
How  much  had  been  blind  fate  and  how  much  far- 
seeing  treachery  he  could  not  determine.  The 
blood  boiled  within  him,  weak  as  he  was,  as  he 
thought  of  the  undeserved  suffering  of  the  man 
who  had  been  a  tower  of  strength  to  him  during 
the  days  of  his  dependency.  Yet  he  must  learn 
more. 

"But  surely  they  didn't  dare — " 

"Arrest  me?  It  might  have  been  better  if  they 
had.  The  story  got  around,  an'  try  as  I  might,  I 
couldna  get  warrk;  nae  engraver  would  hae  me." 

230 


A  PLEDGE  TO  THE  DEAD 

"And  it  has  been  more  than  two  years,"  said 
Philip.  "Medicines,  nursing,  doctors — how  have 
you  done  it?" 

For  a  moment  he  thought  regretfully  of  the 
large  sum  he  had  sent  the  Jamesons  at  the  time 
of  the  firm's  tragedy,  a  sum  whose  loss  had  practi 
cally  impoverished  him.  "Was  it  worth  while?"  he 
asked  himself,  as  he  looked  at  the  struggling  old 
man  sitting  amid  the  wreck  of  his  former  prosper 
ity.  And  the  Jameson  firm  must  have  gone  to  the 
wall  again  long  ago.  Yet  somehow  the  memory 
of  the  act  filled  him  with  confidence  in  his  man 
hood  ;  he,  at  least,  was  young,  would  soon  be  at 
work  again  and  his  father  should  want  no  more. 

"Weel,"  said  Angus,  "it's  been  an  ower  tough 
fight,  but  I've  keepit  at  it." 

He  went  to  a  cupboard  and  brought  forth  a 
basket  which  he  placed  on  his  son's  knees. 

"I've  made  these  fripperies  ye  see  here,  an' 
sauld  'em  in  the  shops,  but  I've  not  got  reech  by 
it,  ye  ken." 

Philip's  eyes  moistened  as  he  viewed  the  bits  of 
engraved  wrood,  beautiful  in  themselves,  but  not 
very  salable,  he  knew.  Then  the  softer  emotion 
was  driven  out  by  a  fierce  desire  for  retaliation. 
Someone  should  be  made  to  suffer  for  the  foul  in 
justice  that  had  compelled  his  father  to  earn  his 
livelihood  almost  as  a  common  hawker.  He 
thanked  God  for  the  returning  strength  that  would 
fit  him  for  a  renewal  of  the  battle  of  life,  for  there 
were  great  things  to  be  done. 

"I  might  ha'  thocht,"  continued  Angus,  break 
ing  in  upon  his  menial  soliloquy,  "that  this  Haven 
was  only  mistaken  in  the  number  o'  certificates, 
but  I  learned  that  it  was  he  who  tried  tae  buy  this 

231 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

house  through  the  mon  Holloway.  But  I'm  in  it 
yet,  and,  please  God,  in  it  I'll  dee.  .  .  .  Does  the 
clatter  annoy  ye,  Philip  ?" 

"No." 

For  the  first  time  it  flashed  through  Philip's 
mind  that  the  scheme  to  defraud  through  public 
officials  of  the  state  had  either  failed  or  had  not 
been  attempted.  He  wondered  that  the  thought 
had  not  occurred  to  him  before ;  but  he  had  been 
so  ill,  so  weak,  so  disinclined  to  think  at  all ! 

Many  days  passed  ere  he  wrung  the  whole 
wretched  truth  of  his  father's  downfall  from  the 
proud  old  man — how  the  little  stock  of  money  had 
been  drawn  upon  bit  by  bit  until  nothing  re 
mained  ;  how  the  fine  mahogany  pieces  had  one  by 
one  gone  to  the  stores  of  the  dealers  in  antique 
furniture  never  to  return ;  how  the  struggle  for 
subsistence  had  gone  on  night  and  day;  how  the 
father  had  labored  belo\v  stairs  in  absolute  silence, 
lest  the  son  should  know  that  he  was  not  away  in 
the  factory.  And  Philip  thought,  with  a  great 
throb  of  gratitude,  that  he  had  all  this  time  been 
living  in  comfort  in  the  room  sacred  to  the  mem 
ories  of  the  past. 

But  upon  this  night  of  revelation  he  had  learned 
enough  to  feel  a  new  impress  upon  his  soul,  the 
conviction  that  duty  was  before  him,  never  to 
leave  his  presence  until  it  was  satisfied.  Hence 
forth  the  world  was  to  be  for  him  a  fighting- 
ground,  not  for  riches,  or  honor,  or  glory,  but  for 
the  triumph  of  a  principle. 

As  he  lay  in  his  welcome  bed  after  the  evening's 
illuminating  talk,  he  reached  for  the  little  worn 
Bible  that  had  been  his  mother's,  and  which  lay  on 


232 


A  PLEDGE   TO   THE  DEAD 

a  table  nearby.  He  raised  it  to  his  lips  and  kissed 
its  dingy  cover. 

"Mother,  my  mother,"  he  said,  solemnly, 
"whose  memory  is  sacred,  though  I  remember  you 
not,  upon  this  book  you  loved  I  pledge  myself  to 
struggle  against  the  wrongs  of  the  oppressed." 

A  little  later,  old  Angus,  peering  cautiously  in, 
found  him  asleep,  with  deep  peace  upon  his  face. 


233 


CHAPTER    XXV. 

"A   PAPER    FOR   THE    PEOPLE." 

THE  "city  room"  of  the  American  News  at 
night  was  in  no  essential  respects  different 
from  that  of  any  other  great  daily  at  a  like 
time.  The  long  rectangle  lined  with  green-shaded 
electric  lights ;  the  rows  of  desks  and  tables  at  most 
of  which  men  in  all  styles  of  raiment  from  shirt 
sleeves  to  dress  coat  were  pounding  furiously  on 
typewriters;  the  sinuous  tubes  of  brass,  from 
which,  with  a  saturnine  chuckle,  belched  little  cart 
ridge-shaped  boxes  from  time  to  time ;  the  rushing 
and  squabbling  of  office-boys ;  the  thick  blue  gusts 
of  tobacco  smoke;  the  laughter  and  badinage  of 
the  groups  of  temporarily  unemployed ;  the  ner 
vous  stammering  of  the  battery  of  telegraphic  in 
struments  in  the  room  adjoining,  where  under  a 
huge  central  light  a  dozen  or  more  men  were 
seated  around  a  long  table  using  blue  pencils,  scis 
sors  and  paste-brushes  on  dispatches  of  many  sizes 
and  colors — all  these  physical  attributes  of  the 
enormous  and  multifarious  activity  of  a  metro 
politan  newspaper  were  as  they  had  been  for  years 
and  would  be  for  years  to  come. 

In  one  corner  of  the  large  room,  behind  a 
ground  glass  partition,  sat  Maurice  Rosenfeld,  the 
city  editor  of  the  News.  He  was  a  slim,  sallow, 
fragile  man,  with  eyes  like  ferrets'  and  a  habit  of 
wiping  his  glasses  with  a  bit  of  flannel  whenever 

234 


"A  PAPER  FOR  THE  PEOPLE" 

he  became  excited.  Just  now  he  was  in  earnest 
consultation  with  Brice,  one  of  his  "star"  special 
men,  on  ways  and  means  for  the  morrow. 

"There's  no  use  talking,  Brice,"  he  said  in  his 
thin,  nasal  voice,  "we've  got  to  brace  up  on  local 
'scares.'  The  'old  man'  was  in  to-day,  kicking  like 
a  steer,  and  I  know  he  means  business." 

"Well,  how  about  Chinatown?"  ventured  Brice. 

"Rats!  Dead  mouldy;  done  to  death.  Show 
more  acumen,  old  man." 

"Then  why  not  make  a  howl  about  an  open  cess 
pool  I  know  of  on  239th  Street,  back  of  a  lot  of 
tenement  houses?  Work  the  typhoid  racket  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing.  'Paper  for  the  people,'  you 
know." 

"Well,  that  might  go,  if  you  do  it  in  good 
shape,"  returned  Rosenfeld  not  very  enthusiasti 
cally.  "Be  sure  and  find  out,  however,  whether 
the  land  is  owned  by  any  advertiser  or  friend  of 
the  'old  man's.'  If  it  isn't,  bang  'em  good  and 
hard.  Soak  the  board  of  health  incidentally; 
Jones,  the  chairman,  called  the  'old  man'  an  'in- 
Hated  ass'  at  the  last  meeting." 

"I'm  on,"  returned  the  reporter,  cheerily.  "You 
can  bet  it'll  be  a  good  story." 

"It'll  have  to  be,"  said  Rosenfeld,  grimly,  "or  it 
won't  go." 

No  sooner  had  Brice  left  the  little  den  than  the 
managing  editor  of  the  paper  waddled  in.  John 
Wesley  Landor  was  a  mountain  of  flesh  endowed 
with  a  keen  brain,  a  sensitive  nature  and  an  abso 
lute  aversion  to  his  profession — when  out  of  the 
office.  "It's  like  opium,"  he  said,  "you  can't  drop 
it,  but  how  you  do  curse  it  when  the  spell  is  off." 

235 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

He  had  curling  yellow  hair  and  a  heavy  imperial 
that  gave  him  a  distinctly  martial  air. 

He  had  come  to  tell  his  city  editor  that  there 
was  an  immense  "jam"  on  the  paper.  He  liked  to 
enforce  his  orders  in  person,  though  he  might  have 
used  the  telephone. 

"You'll  have  to  cut  everything  to  the  bone  to 
night,  Rosey,''  he  said,  genially.  "The  counting 
room  notified  me — at  the  eleventh  hour,  of  course 
— that  the  Winslow  'elephant'  page  'ad'  of  their 
confounded  anniversary  sale  goes  to-night — or 
dered  by  wire." 

"Of  course,"  returned  the  city  editor.  "Blamed 
old  shop  keeper  always  waits  till  news  is  thicker 
than  sand  fleas." 

"That's  just  it,  my  boy.  Guess  he  had  a  tip  on 
that  World's  Bank  'scoop.'  Winslow  and  the  'old 
man'  are  pretty  chummy  just  now,  and  Winslow's 
clever  enough  to  advertise  on  a  day  when  the 
paper's  sure  to  have  a  big  run.  Hang  the  'ele 
phant  !'  How  much  of  a  'reader'  is  supposed  to 
go  with  the  beast  ?" 

"Column  and  a  half." 

"H'mph !  Rosey,  if  I  ever  own  a  paper,  I'll  give 
advertisers  just  what  they  pay  for — no  more  and 
no  less.  I'll— " 

"If  you  ever  own  a  paper,  Landor,"  interrupted 
Rosen feld,  in  his  cutting  tones,  "you'll  do  as  all 
the  rest  do.  You'll  probably  be  mighty  glad  to 
get  business  on  any  terms." 

To  this  the  managing  editor  made  no  reply,  but 
went  to  a  sharp  wall-hook  on  which  the  evening's 
proofs  were  hanging,  and  turned  the  long  slips 
over  with  the  dexterity  of  an  expert. 

"Better  nip  this  murder  yarn  into  a  column," 
236 


"A  PAPER  FOR  THE  PEOPLE" 

he  said.     "Anyway,  it's  a  pretty  tame  theory  of 
the  crime.    Who  did  it?" 

"Dalrymple." 

"H'mph!  His  imagination's  petering  out. 
Stopped  drinking,  hasn't  he?" 

"Yes,  he's  going  to  be  married." 

"So  ?  No  time  for  imagination,  then ;  must  face 
cold  facts.  Old  Thatcher,  of  the  St.  Louis  Inde 
pendent  used  to  say  to  me  when  I  was  a  reporter 
on  that  blessed  rag:  'Young  man,  don't  be  in  a 
hurry  to  make  your  best  girl  permanent.'  And  I 
wasn't,  but — "  The  ponderous  man  sighed 
gently;  there  was  a  romance  connected  with 
Landor  in  some  way,  though  none  knew  exactly 
how. 

"This  story  about  the  heresy  charges  might  be 
boiled  into  a  stick,"  he  resumed,  still  turning  the 
proofs.  "People  care  very  little  about  the  intellec 
tual  sins  of  the  clergy.  If  the  parson  had  done 
something  morally  heretical,  it  would  be  different. 
And  this — well?" 

The  question  was  for  a  smartly  uniformed  boy 
who  had  entered  and  stood  respectfully  by  his  side. 

"Mr.  Price  wants  to  see  you  at  once,  sir." 

"Very  well ;  you  may  go.  Didn't  know  the  'old 
man'  was  coming  in  to-night,  Rosey.  Wonder 
what  crotchet  he's  got  now." 

Landor  stepped  to  the  elevator,  and  was  carried 
high  into  the  steel  tower  in  one  corner  of  the  great 
building,  where  was  the  luxurious  suite  of  offices 
occupied  by  Orville  W.  Price,  the  man  whose 
slightest  whim  dictated  what  should  be  said  and 
served  to — as  his  business  letter-heads  asserted — 
"Over  Twelve  Million  People  in  the  Twenty-two 
Leading  Cities  of  the  United  States." 

237 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Landor  never  answered  a  summons  to  the  steel 
tower  but  with  a  sense  of  dread.  He  knew  that 
one  day  the  call  would  come  to  him  for  the  last 
time,  and  that  someone  else,  perhaps  a  man  who 
was  now  the  least-considered  of  his  subordinates, 
would  reign  in  his  stead.  He  knew  that  his  own 
predecessor  had  fallen  from  his  very  faithfulness 
in  carrying  out  the  policy  of  Price.  According  to 
instructions  he  had  attacked  a  corporation  particu 
larly  flagrant  in  its  disregard  of  public  rights.  So 
brilliant  and  effective  had  been  the  onslaught  that 
the  corporation  had  been  aroused  from  its  cus 
tomary  indifference,  and  had  fought  back.  Such 
powerful  and  financial  interests  had  been  arrayed 
against  Price  that  he  had  been  forced  not  only  to 
abandon  the  antagonistic  policy  of  the  paper,  but 
to  give  over  a  peace  offering  in  the  shape  of  the 
official  head  of  his  zealous  second  in  command. 

Landor,  however,  saw  no  signs  of  any  such 
untoward  event  to-night  in  the  clear  brown  eyes 
of  his  chief,  eyes  whose  smiling  light  generally 
blinded  those  who  saw  him  to  the  selfish  grossness 
of  the  lower  portion  of  his  face. 

"Good  evening,  Landor,"  said  Price,  cordially. 
"I  see  by  the  proofs  that  we've  a  fine  layout  for  the 
morning.  Too  bad  Winslow's  big  'ad'  will  crowd 
us.  But  business — ahem — is  business,  you  know." 

Landor  was  certain  that  he  had  not  been  sum 
moned  to  hear  encomiums  on  the  prospective  con 
tents  of  the  morrow's  paper.  It  was  not  Price's 
custom  to  waste  time  on  the  amenities  of  journal 
ism  with  his  own  men.  He  awaited  something  of 
a  critical  nature,  and  his  judgment  was  soon  veri 
fied. 

238 


"A   PAPER  FOR  THE  PEOPLE" 

"By  the  way,  who  wrote  this  editorial?"  asked 
the  chief.  Landor  glanced  at  the  proof. 

"Mr.  Phelps." 

"I  thought  I  recognized  his  bludgeon  style.  A 
good  writer — ahem — but  lacks  tact.  Uses  a 
sledge-hammer  when  a  rapier  would  do  as  well, 
and  not  leave  such  an  —  ahem  —  unpleasant 
wound." 

The  editorial  in  question  was  a  violent  attack  on 
the  governor  of  the  state  for  his  action  in  pardon 
ing  an  official  who  had  betrayed  his  trust  for 
money,  and  in  refusing  to  entertain  a  plea  for 
clemency  toward  a  friendless  wretch  whose  crime 
had  been  provoked  by  the  treachery  of  his  associ 
ates  and  its  resultant  poverty.  Landor  had 
thought  it  well  done,  and  especially  adapted  to  the 
popular  tone  of  the  News. 

Price  read  the  editorial  again  with  silent  move 
ments  of  his  thick  lips. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "very  strong,  very  strong,  in 
deed.  And  true,  too.  This  sort  of  thing  helps  the 
News  with  the  people.  But — ahem — well,  Lan 
dor,  as  you  know,  the  governor,  although  he's  not 
on  our  side  of  the  political  fence,  did  us  a  great 
favor  last  winter.  And — ahem — there's  consider 
able  advertising  to  be  done  by  the  council  on  the 
new  codification  laws.  So  I  think  we — " 

"That  editorial  is  going  to  be  'killed,'  "  thought 
Landor,  and  he  looked  over  the  proofs  of  standing 
matter  to  select  something  innocuous  to  take  its 
place.  Price  divined  his  intention  at  once. 

"No,  I  don't  think  I'll  kill  it,"  he  said,  with  a 
smile.  "It's  too  good  to  be  lost.  It  points  a 
moral  the  people  like ;  clemency  for  the  influential, 
jail  for  the  friendless.  But.  Landor,  we'll  com- 

239 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

promise.  Phelps  has  headed  it  'Gubernatorial 
Justice,'  with  'Justice'  m  quotation  marks.  Just 
have  the  'quotes'  taken  off.  That'll  take  the  sting 
out  of  it." 

A  little  buzzing  sound  was  heard,  and  a  disc 
marked  "St.  Louis"  showed  in  the  annunciator  on 
Price's  desk.  The  great  editor  unhooked  the  tele 
phone  receiver  and  pressed  it  to  his  ear. 

"Eh?  Defalcation?"  he  said  to  his  far-off  sub 
ordinate.  "How  much?  Good!  Play  it  up 
strong!  Eh?  Why,  first  page,  of  course,  with 
five-column  'scare'  head,  matter  hand-set.  And 
telegraph  two  thousand  words,  rush." 

"The  rascally  thief,"  exclaimed  Price,  turning 
to  Landor.  "We  must  make  an  example  of  him 
for  the  public  good.  That  man  five  years  ago 
blocked  one  of  the  best  newspaper  deals  I  ever  got 
hold  of,  and  forced  me  to  pay  double  to  carry  it 
through.  But  the  newspaper  man's  turn  always 
comes,  you  know,  Landor.  Sooner  or  later  every 
man  in  the  world  wants  us  either  to  put  something 
into  our  paper  or  to  keep  something  out.  Then  it 
all  depends  on  how  he  has  treated  us." 

While  his  chief  was  telephoning  further  instruc 
tions,  Landor  pressed  a  button  for  a  boy,  and  sent 
to  the  composing  room  the  proof  of  the  "Justice" 
editorial  with  the  quotation  marks  expunged, 
wondering  the  while  how  far  the  mere  matter  of 
punctuation  could  alter  a  sentiment  or  ameliorate 
an  attack.  He  remembered  having  read  some 
where  that  a  war  had  once  arisen  from  the  use  of 
a  "lower  case"  letter  in  a  state  document  where  a 
"capital"  should  have  been,  and  he  decided  that  his 
astute  chief,  being  very  much  of  a  diplomat,  knew 
what  he  was  about. 


"A  PAPER  FOR  THE  PEOPLE" 

Price,  having  finished  his  long-distance  editing, 
picked  up  a  proof  headed  "ad  People's  Column," 
and  handed  it  to  the  managing  editor. 

"Do  you  know  anything  of  the  author  of  the 
letter  I  have  marked?"  he  asked. 

Landor  glanced  at  the  caption,  "Man's  Right  to 
Manhood,"  and  at  the  signature. 

"No.  I  do  not,"  he  replied.  "Fillebrown  is 
handling  the  'People's  Column'  now.  He  may 
know." 

"If  he  doesn't,  ask  him  to  find  out.  I've  noticed 
several  strong  letters  signed  by  that  name.  Ahem, 
what — " 

"Craig,  Philip  Craig,"  replied  Landor,  referring 
to  the  proof-slip. 

"Ah,  yes.  They  read  mighty  well.  Just  the 
sort  of  stuff  the  people  like.  By  the  way,  have  that 
one  set  in  larger  type,  and  put  a  two-column  head 
over  it." 

"Yes,"  said  the  managing  editor.  He  was  im 
patient  to  be  gone,  for  he  knew  that  pressing 
duties  were  piling  up  for  him  at  each  moment's 
delay. 

"And  when  Fillebrown  finds  out  his  address, 
hire  him  to  write  a  series  of  articles  on  kindred 
topics — every  other  day,  say." 

"Signed?"' 

"Of  course.  The  signature  takes  the  curse  off — 
ahem — in  some  quarters,  while  with  the  people  it 
is  much  the  same  thing.  This  Craig's  name  has  a 
familiar  sound,  but  it  isn't  likely  that  I  have  ever 
known  him.  Men  who  write  for  newspapers  usu 
ally  do  not  amount  to  much — of  course  I  mean 
men  who  write  gratis." 

241 


CHAPTER    XXVI. 

IN    A    NEW   FIELD. 

THE  morning  after  Philip  had  made  his  start 
ling  appearance  downstairs  dawned  cloud 
less  and  serene.  The  mellow  radiance  of  the 
sun  against  his  window-shades  flooded  the  room 
with  a  soft  light  and  woke  him  early — even  before 
his  father  was  stirring. 

As  soon  as  he  heard  the  old  man  moving  about, 
he  called  him  to  his  bedside. 

"When  did  Dr.  Blake  say  I  should  be  out?"  he 
asked. 

"In  twa  months  or  sae." 

Months!  And  he  was  impatient  to  be  up  and 
doing  at  once,  to  prove  to  his  father  that  gratitude 
was  not  a  mere  matter  of  words  or  of  sentiment. 

Later  he  occupied  some  of  his  time  with  writing 
letters  on  topics  of  vital  human  interest  for  the 
"People's  Column"  of  the  American  News.  He 
had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  his  little  essays  in 
print  pretty  often,  and  that  morning  was  surprised 
and  delighted  to  see  his  letter  occupying  a  place 
of  honor  on  the  editorial  page,  with  the  additional 
distinction  of  larger  type  than  usual  and  a  two- 
column  head.  "Man's  Right  to  Manhood"  cer 
tainly  looked  impressive,  and  he  felt  that  he  was 
not  vainglorious  in  believing  that  its  treatment 
reached  the  mark  for  which  he  had  aimed. 

That  succcs  d'cstime  put  new  thoughts  into 
242 


IN  A  NEW  FIELD 

Philip's  head.  lie  was  like  a  wanderer  in  the  for 
est  wilds  who  suddenly  comes  across  a  blazed  path, 
leading  he  knows  not  and  cares  not  whither,  but 
surely  to  some  point  of  vantage.  When  the  even 
ing  lamp  was  lighted  in  the  upper  room,  and 
Angus  came  for  a  chat,  as  he  always  did  nowadays, 
the  son  said : 

"Father,  I  am  going  to  work." 

"Warrk?"  echoed  the  old  man,  incredulously. 
"Philip,  mon,  ye  can  scarcely  stand." 

''True  enough,  but  I  can  sit  here  and  write." 

"Write?" 

"Yes;  for  a  livelihood,  I  mean." 

"What'll  ye  write?    Stories?    Plays?" 

"My  bent  isn't  that  way,  I'm  afraid,  father.  I've 
no  imagination.  I  thought  I  had  it  once,  but  it 
was  simply  a  dream.  No,  I  shall  write  facts,  facts. 
Nothing  else  appeals  to  me." 

He  spoke  with  vehemence,  and  his  pale  face 
colored  a  little.  His  father  looked  at  him  curi 
ously. 

"Ye'll  find  'facts'  a  poor  leevin',  Philip,"  he  said. 
"Facts  are  ower  hard  to  sell — we  a'  have  more 
than  we  want  in  real  life." 

"I  don't  expect  to  do  exactly  what  you  think," 
said  the  son,  earnestly.  "I  shall  perhaps  try  jour 
nalism — " 

"That's  not  facts,  surely,"  interrupted  Angus, 
drily. 

"Or  maybe  statistical  work.  But  I  prefer  writ- 
ing." 

"Weel,  ye've  got  a  gude  way  o'  expressin'  yer- 
sel',  lad,  as  I  ken  by  ye'er  articles  in  the  News — 
aye,  I  have  read  'em — an'  ye  get  fair  at  the  truth. 


243 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

But  ye  must  do  better  yet  tae  sell  ye'er  wares. 
Can  ye  do't?" 

For  answer,  Philip  drew  some  closely  written 
pages  from  a  table  drawer  at  his  side,  and  began 
to  read. 

The  theme  was  a  newspaper  clipping  telling  of 
the  plan  adopted  by  certain  restaurants  in  response 
to  the  plea  of  the  charitably  disposed.  Each  mid 
night  there  was  a  distribution  to  the  poor  of  the 
remnants  of  food  from  the  tables  of  the  more  for 
tunate,  a  few  cents  being  charged  to  raise  the 
scheme  above  the  plane,  of  absolute  pauperism. 
The  newspaper  went  on  to  say  that  the  dire  dis 
tress  now  prevalent  had  given  rise  to  strange  and 
grimly  suggestive  scenes.  Baby  boys  and  girls, 
tottering  old  men  and  women,  waited  for  hours 
every  night  in  the  long  line  of  those  who  came 
with  scarcely  more  patience  than  that  of  famished 
wolves,  to  spend  their  little  daily  all  for  something 
that  might  sustain  life. 

Upon  this  foundation  Philip  erected  a  structure 
of  such  logical  force  and  direct  strength  of  style 
that  his  father  was  greatly  interested.  Growing 
respect  mingled  with  wonder  in  his  gaze,  as  he 
rested  his  chin  in  the  palm  of  his  hand  and  gently 
rocked,  as  was  his  custom. 

The  essay  deplored  the  situation  that  made 
worthy  people  practically  beggars,  and  censured 
the  state  of  society  in  \vhich  able-bodied  men  were 
unable  to  find  work  sufficient  to  keep  soul  and 
body  together.  It  was  temperate,  but  forceful ; 
sternly  condemnatory,  yet  not  fanatical.  It  was 
not  until  the  closing  paragraph  that  Philip  did 
more  than  paint  the  picture  and  trace  the  growth 
of  conditions  that  had  made  it  possible.  Then  his 

244 


IN  A  NEW  FIELD 

voice  took  on  a  new  ring  of  vibrant  emotion  which 
struck  fire  from  his  father's  soul  and  filled  the  old 
man  with  great  joy. 

"I  contend,"  read  Philip,  "that  every  man  born 
into  the  world  has  an  inalienable  right  to  the  op 
portunity  to  earn  his  livelihood.  It  may  be  char 
ity  to  give — though  I  think  not  true  charity;  it  is 
injustice  to  forbid  him  to  earn  it.  All  over  the 
Christian  world  prayers  go  up  with  each  morning's 
sun :  'give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread.'  Who  are 
the  'us'?  How  many  of  those  who  pray  care 
whether  the  men  they  meet  in  the  street  are  hun 
gry  or  not ;  whether  they  have  work,  or  cannot  find 
it?  How  many  rise  from  their  knees  determined 
to  do  what  they  can  to  better  social  conditions  so 
that  he  who  would  labor,  may?  This  spectacle  of 
feeding  the  poor  from  the  garbage  barrels  of  the 
rich  is  a  shame  to  manhood,  a  deterrent  to  mater 
nity.  "What  mother  knows  to  what  depths  of 
shame  her  child  may  fall  in  a  community  where 
honest  toil  will  not  command  honestly  earned 
'daily  bread'?" 

There  was  a  long  silence  after  the  last  earnest 
interrogation.  At  last  old  Angus  looked  up  with 
a  grateful  light  in  his  eyes. 

"Ye  never  talked  like  this  before,  Philip,"  he 
said,  quietly. 

"I  never  felt  like  this  before,"  replied  the  son. 
"The  needs  of  humanity  scarcely  touched  me. 
But  since  T  have  lain  here,  helpless,  and  have  read, 
I  have — thought." 

"Ay,  the  bukes,"  thought  the  elder  man.  "And, 
too,  he  has  heard  us  talk.  God  be  praised,  he's 
begun  tae  see  the  licht  at  last." 

The  next  day  Angus  was  startled  by  a  re- 
245 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

sounding  knock  on  the  street-door.  Reconnoiter- 
ing  with  his  usual  caution,  he  found  his  caller  to 
be  a  tall,  fresh-faced,  boyish  young  man  with  pleas 
ant  gray  eyes,  and  a  smile  that  disclosed  teeth  of 
radiant  whiteness. 

"Does  Mr.  Philip  Craig  live  here?"  he  asked. 

"Aye,  he  does,  lad.  What'll  be  ye'er  pleasure 
of  him?" 

The  young  man  handed  Angus  a  rather  flam 
boyant  card  on  which  was  printed  a  miniature  fac 
simile  of  the  first  page  of  the  American  News. 
Across  this  was  stamped  in  red  ink,  "Mr.  George 
Wilkinson." 

"I  very  much  want  to  see  Mr.  Craig,"  said  the 
reporter.  "You  see,  our  city  editor,  Mr.  Rosen- 
feld,  heard  Mr.  Landor,  the  managing  editor,  ask 
ing  about  Mr.  Craig's  address,  and  he  remembered 
a  'story'  the  News  printed  three  years  ago  about 
a  Craig  cottage  being  hemmed  in  by  mills.  He 
looked  it  up,  arid  sure  enough  it  said  you  had  a 
son  named  Philip,  who  was  a  big  capitalist,  or  con 
nected  with  one.  He  wondered  at  that,  consider 
ing  the  tone  of  the  letters  the  News  has  been 
printing,  and  thought  I'd  better  get  an  interview 
with  Mr.  Craig.  It's  my  first  real  decent  assign 
ment,"  he  added,  wistfully,  as  he  saw  Angus'  face 
harden.  "All  I've  had  so  far  have  been  little  mis 
erable  fires  and  meetings  of  women's  clubs.  I've 
got  a  good  chance  to  make  myself  solid  now.  And 
besides,  I've  a  letter  from  our  managing  editor 
for  Mr.  Craig." 

"Coom  upstairs,  then,  lad,"  said  the  old  man. 
"Ye'll  find  my  son  an  invalid,  but  I  think  he'll  gi' 
ye  whatever  ye  want." 

Philip  was  attracted  by  the  youthful  enthusiasm 
246 


IN  A  NEW  FIELD 

and  honest  simplicity  of  young  Mr.  Wilkinson, 
who  was  still  at  that  stage  of  newspaper  work 
,  where  a  notebook  and  pencil  are  very  much  in  evi 
dence.  He  was  willing  to  be  "interviewed,"  and 
gave  the  reporter  much  matter  that  the  latter's 
instinct,  crude  as  it  was,  told  him  would  make  a 
good  "story." 

"You  say  you  are  new  at  the  business,  Mr. 
Wilkinson,"  said  Craig,  when  the  more  ceremoni 
ous  part  of  their  talk  was  over.  "How  do  you 
like  it?" 

"It's  glorious,"  replied  the  young  man,  his  face 
telling  of  his  genuine  enthusiasm.  "It's  a  great 
thing  to  feel  that  what  you  write  is  read  by  thou 
sands  and  thousands  of  people  everywhere." 

"But  they  do  not  know  you." 

"Not  yet,"  replied  the  boy,  hopefully,  "but  they 
will  by  and  by,  if  my  stuff's  good  enough.  And  I 
mean  to  make  it  good  enough.  When  I'm  a  'star' 
man  I  shall  be  allowed  to  sign  my  'stories.'  It's 
bound  to  come  some  time." 

"I  trust  it  will,"  said  Philip,  earnestly.  "You 
are  made  of  the  right  stuff." 

Just  before  leaving,  Wilkinson  handed  Philip 
the  letter.  With  much  wonderment  he  broke  the 
seal  and  read : — 

Mr.  Philip  Craig, 

Dear  Sir: — I  am  authorized  by  Mr.  Orville  W. 
Price,  the  editor  and  proprietor  of  the  American 
News,  to  ask  if  you  will  furnish  his  paper  with 
three  letters  a  week  on  topics  similar  to  those  you 
have  been  discussing  in  the  "People's  Column"  of 
the  Mews.  For  each  letter  fifteen  dollars  will  be 


247 


CW  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

paid.  Kindly  advise  me,  through  Mr.  Wilkinson, 
whether  this  proposition  meets  with  your  ap 
proval. 

Very  truly, 

John  Wesley  Landor, 

Managing  Editor. 

Philip's  heart  leaped  with  joy,  as  he  realized 
that  his  days  of  dependence  were  over.  Not  only 
would  he  no  longer  be  a  burden  on  his  father,  but 
he  would  at  last  be  a  factor  in  the  world  for  the 
cause  of  the  people  with  whom  he  had  sworn  to 
cast  his  lot. 

"Tell  Mr.  Landor,"  he  said  to  the  reporter, 
"that  I  accept,  and  will  begin  work  at  once." 

"I  will  do  so,  sir,"  replied  the  young  man. 
"And  I  want  to  thank  you  for  your  kindness.  It 
may  mean  much  to  me,  and — I  shall  not  forget  it." 

It  was  not  long  before  Philip  became  a  regularly 
constituted  member  of  the  debating  society  of 
Angus'  front  room,  and  he  soon  grew  to  be  re 
garded  as  its  leader.  Fluency  of  speech  came  to 
him,  as  facility  in  writing  had  done,  almost  with 
out  effort.  His  logic  often  proved  too  much  for 
the  hot  generalizations  of  the  others,  and  of  Luke 
Ford  in  particular. 

"Tell  ye  what,"  observed  that  lank  individual  to 
Langmaid,  as  they  were  walking  home  one  night 
after  Philip  had  succeeded  in  demolishing  a  pet 
theory  of  his,  "it's  devilish  strange  how  young 
Craig  comes  it  over  me.  If  he  said  I  was  a  darned 
oyster  and  talked  over  the  subject  ten  minutes,  I 
believe  I'd  be  lookin'  round  to  see  what  had  be 
come  of  my  shell." 

By  nervous  intensity  of  work  Philip  strove  to 
"248 


IN  A   NEW  FIELD 

throw  the  veil  of  forgetfulness  over  the  past.  One 
day  his  father  referred  to  his  old  life,  and  was  met 
by  a  request,  almost  stern  enough  to  be  a  com 
mand,  that  he  consider  that  topic  not  to  be  dis 
cussed.  Yet  he  could  not  so  order  his  mind.  The 
face  and  voice  of  Helen  Norton  dominated  his 
dreams  and  forced  themselves  into  his  waking 
hours.  He  wondered  what  had  become  of  her. 
what  friends  were  now  surrounding  her,  whether 
— but  that  was  torture.  He  now  knew  that  had 
fate  not  struck  him  clown  on  that  terrible  day,  he 
would  have  given  up  the  fight  for  nothing  short 
of  a  personal  rejection.  Then  would  come  the 
horrible  thought  that  there  might  have  been  some 
mistake;  yet,  again,  young  Bayles  was  absolutely 
trustworthy. 

Perhaps  the  most  agonizing  fear  of  a  true  lover 
is  that  his  lady  shall  think  him  a  weakling,  and  this 
came  to  Philip  with  especial  force,  and  often  gave 
him  no  peace.  Notwithstanding  her  peremptory 
dismissal  of  him,  would  she  not  think  him  a 
recreant  cur  to  abandon  her  so  easily?  Was  not 
that  the  way  of  women — to  freeze,  yet  expect  to 
be  thawed  ?  Pie  had  no  hope  that  she  could  have 
heard  of  his  misfortune.  If  she  had — worse  yet, 
for  she  had  neither  been  to  see  him,,  nor  sent  him 
a  single  word.  Altogether  it  was  a  long  and  a 
dark  path  he  and  memory  trod  together,  and  he 
turned  to  his  new  work  with  all  the  gratitude  of  a 
starving  man  who  is  given  food. 

For  several  months  after  this  he  \vas  compelled 
to  keep  within  doors,  for  the  doctor  had  been 
over-sanguine  in  his  predictions.  But  at  last  came 
a  glowing  and  gracious  day  in  September  when  he 

249 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

was  taken  for  a  long  drive  into  the  country.  The 
joy  of  life  came  back  to  him ;  the  breath  of  nature 
was  like  a  magic  tonic,  in  his  lungs.  Thereafter  his 
recovery  was  rapid,  and  by  the  approach  of  winter 
he  walked  among  men  once  more,  as  stalwart  and 
as  energetic  as  any. 


250 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

ACROSS  A  HUMAN  SEA. 

THE  big  policeman  who  stood  at  the  intersec 
tion  of  one.  of  New  York's  crowded  cross- 
streets  and  Broadway  raised  his  hand,  palm 
out,  against  the  chaffeur  of  a  heavy  auto-car,  and 
at  once  the  vehicle  came  to  a  stop.  The  chaffeur 
dismounted  and  spoke  to  the  occupants  of  his  con 
veyance.  One  of  them,  in  turn,  alighted  and  went 
to  the  window  of  a  similar  car  just  behind. 

At  the  aperture  appeared  the  stern  face  of  John 
Norton,  more  seamed  with  lines  of  care  and  still 
more  hard  and  expressionless  than  in  the  days 
when  he  had  fought  for  and  won  recognition  from 
the  city's  greatest. 

"What's  the  trouble,  Neilson?"  he  asked  with 
an  irritated  air.  "What's  the  delay  about?  Has 
your  motor  broken  down?" 

The  handsome  young  man,  still  bearing  the 
appearance  of  the  trained  athlete,  shrugged  his 
broad  shoulders. 

"No,  but  the  police  say  that  it  will  be  impossible 
to  cross  Broadway  for  hours  on  account  of  the 
parade." 

"H'mph,  that's  pleasant.     What  parade?" 

"Labor  Day,  Mr.  Drexel  says;  I  confess  I  had 
almost  forgotten  there  was  such  a  thing." 

This  remark  was  not  so  flippant  as  it  sounded, 
for  Ward  Neilson  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  Alice 

251 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Drexel  of  the  dark  and  passionate  eyes,  had  just 
landed  from  an  ocean  liner  after  two  years  of 
European  travel. 

"Labor  Day,  eh?"  sneered  Norton.  "And  to 
declare  their  own  rights  it  is  necessary,  I  suppose, 
to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  others,  as  usual." 

"The  only  way  to  get  to  the  station,  my  chaf- 
feur  says,"  continued  Neilson,  "is  to  go  up  as  far 
as  I25th  St." 

"Infernal  nuisance,"  growled  Norton. 

"But  we  can  reach  the  side  entrance  to  the  Rot 
terdam,  where  my  father-in-law  has  apartments. 
He  and  Mrs.  Drexel  suggest  that  we  go  there  for 
luncheon  and  then  see  what  develops." 

"What  do  you  say,  Harriet?"  said  Norton  to  his 
wife,  whose  sweet  face  was  now  framed  by  gray 
hair  that  spoke  rather  too  emphatically  of  the 
touch  of  time. 

"Whatever  you  please,  John,"  she  replied. 

"And  you,  Helen?" 

"I  don't  care." 

John  Norton  was  partly  annoyed,  partly  pained 
at  the  listless  indifference  of  his  daughter's  words. 
But  he  merely  said  quietly  to  Neilson : — 

"Very  well,  Ward,  we'll  go  to  the  Rotterdam,  if 
these — these  parading  gentlemen  will  permit." 

But  little  did  this  foremost  financier  of  the  world 
reck  of  the  marching  hosts  of  labor,  as  the  auto 
car  slowly  made  its  tortuous  way  to  the  great 
hotel.  It  was  his  fair-haired  daughter,  leaning 
against  the  cushioned  back  of  the  seat  opposite, 
who  filled  his  mind  and  heart.  So  like  her  old 
self,  and  yet  so  subtly  different,  he  thought  with  a 
sigh.  Her  outward  beauty  was  as  fresh,  as  fra 
grant,  as  youthful  as  ever;  but  the  old  animation 

252 


ACROSS  A   HUMAN  SEA 

that  leaped  forward  toward  whatever  was  sympa 
thetic  and  appealing  to  her  nature  was  visible  no 
more. 

It  had  been  nearly  eighteen  months  since  Nor 
ton  had  seen  Helen,  for  she  had  been  abroad  with 
the  Neilsons,  at  whose  wedding  she  had  been  a 
bridesmaid.  Aiice  Drexel  had  been  her  only  inti 
mate  friend  among  the  young  women  of  her  ac 
quaintance,  and  some  time  after  that  discerning 
and  sympathetic  girl  had  become  the  wife  of  Ward 
Neilson,  she  had  earnestly  entreated  Helen,  some 
thing  of  whose  story  she  knew,  to  cross  and  join 
them  at  their  villa  on  the  Riviera.  After  that  they 
had  traveled  in  Egypt  and  Palestine,  and  their 
liking  for  one  another  had  developed  into  warm 
and  lasting  affection. 

To-day  Norton  thought  he  detected  in  his 
daughter  that  mysterious  something  that  had  so 
alarmed  his  wife  five  years  before.  At  that  time  ill- 
health  had  been  feared,  and  Helen  was  taken  to 
eminent  specialists,  who  assured  her  parents,  at 
round  figures,  that  the  girl  was  in  perfect  physical 
condition.  One  of  them,  more  skilful  or  perhaps 
more  honest  than  the  rest,  had  hinted  that  some 
mental  burden  weighed  heavy  on  her  heart,  but 
this  Norton  scouted  as  unworthy  of  credence  or 
of  his  daughter. 

He  knew  that  the  blighting  of  her  first  romance 
was  a  severe  blow,  but  it  was  a  first  romance,  and 
such  things  were  easily  forgotten. 

But  he  wished  that  Helen  had  made  some  pro 
test,  had  exhibited  her  old  pretty  wilfulness.  A 
revolt  he  could  quell,  but  dull  silence  disarmed 
him.  She  had  not  spoken  to  him  of  Craig,  nor 
had  she  mentioned  his  name  even  to  her  mother 

253 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

since  that  day  when  her  father's  decision  had  been 
announced. 

He  now  remembered  that  he  had  thought  it 
strange  at  first,  but  had  attributed  it  to  some 
vagary  of  a  young  girl's  heart,  for  which  there  was 
no  accounting.  When  he  learned,  some  time  after 
it  occurred,  of  the  accident  to  Philip,  through  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Bentley,  and  was  told  that  the  young 
man's  life  was  despaired  of,  he  decided  that  Helen 
must  be  removed  from  the  city.  He  feared,  he 
knew  not  what,  but  chiefly  that  the  girl  might,  if 
she  learned  the  truth,  perform  some  quixotic  ac 
tion  that  would  undo  the  work  of  months. 

So  on  the  plea  of  his  wife's  ill-health,  Norton 
had  sent  his  family  to  one  of  his  estates  on  an 
island  off  the  coast  of  Florida  early  in  the  winter 
following  the  break  with  Craig.  Mrs.  Norton, 
fond  as  she  was  of  her  husband,  was  glad  to  go  on 
Helen's  account.  The  discerning  eyes  of  a  good 
mother  can  pierce  to  the  heart  of  her  child,  even 
though  confidence  be  withheld  and  well  meant  dis 
simulation  strive  to  conceal  emotion.  A  good 
mother's  heart  pulsates  in  unison  with  her  child's, 
and  its  sympathies  are  certain  because  the  instincts 
of  motherhood  are  infallible. 

Harriet  Norton  was  not  lulled  into  confidence 
by  appearances;  she  knew  that  Helen's  love 
wound  was  no  surface  scratch,  self-healing  in  little 
time.  Had  the  girl  invited  confidence  she  would 
have  sought  to  console  her,  and  might,  even,  for 
the  first  time  in  her  life,  have  dared  to  dispute  her 
husband's  will  and  have  tried  to  ascertain  whether, 
after  all,  an  injustice  had  not  been  done. 

Sometimes  during  their  stay  in  Florida,  the 
mother  was  tempted  to  broach  the  subject,  but 

254 


ACROSS  A   HUMAN  SEA 

something  in  Helen's  manner  awed  her  into  con 
tinued  silence.  She  felt  as  if  one  dear  to  her 
daughter  had  died,  leaving  sorrow  too  deep  to  be 
even  touched  by  mere  human  words. 

From  Florida  they  had  gone  to  the  great  ranch 
in  the  Northwest  for  the  summer,  where  Helen 
appeared  to  enjoy  the  free,  out-door  life  of  the 
plains.  The  girl  had  ridden  hard  and  far  every 
day,  yet  not  even  the  excitement  of  long  gallops 
had  brought  back  the  old  exuberance  of  spirits. 
Yet  she  was  cheerful  and  sweet-natured,  as  always, 
and  at  last  the  mother  began  to  believe  that  her 
imagination  had  deluded  her,  and  that,  after  all, 
the  loss  of  animal  vivacity  was  but  the  outcome  of 
the  transformation  from  youth  to  womanhood. 

They  bad  spent  little  time  in  New  York  for 
several  seasons,  and  then  had  come  the  trip  to 
Europe.  This  journeying  through  the  delights  of 
the  old  world  both  Norton  and  his  wife  believed 
to  be  a  perfect  cure  for  Helen,  for  her  letters  were 
filled  with  animated  descriptions  of  her  sight-see 
ing,  without  the  slightest  touch  of  sadness  or  any 
thing  akin  to  regret. 

But  to  see  the  girl  herself  after  it  all,  was  to 
bring  back  the  old  perturbation  to  John  Norton, 
and  he  was  glad  when  the  hotel  was  reached,  and 
the  party  was  settled  in  the  splendid  rooms  of  the 
Drexels'  on  the  second  story,  facing  Broadway. 
Surely  these  people  would  animate  Helen  and 
make  her  home-coming  a  festal  affair.  Old 
Drexel  was  a  merry  little  gentleman,  a  dispenser 
of  bons-mots  as  well  as  an  expert  bon-vivant,  while 
his  wife  was  a  motherly  soul  who  radiated  cheer 
fulness  wherever  she  went.  The  Neilsons  were  as 
happy  as  larks  at  their  return,  and  Helen  must 

255 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

catch  something  of  their  infectious  gaiety,  Norton 
thought. 

Luncheon  was  served  in  a  room  overlooking 
the  street,  and  to  the  pleasant  jingle  of  glass  and 
silver  was  added  the  martial  strains  of  many  bands, 
the  measured  cadence  of  marching  feet  and  the 
lusty,  deep-throated  cheers  of  thousands  of  men 
bent  on  giving  the  city  a  hint  of  their  strength  on 
this  their  especial  holiday. 

"I  suppose  that's  for  some  particularly  Na 
poleonic  hod-carrier,"  observed  Norton  with  his 
saturnine  smile,  as  a  great  shout  vibrated  against 
the  walls  of  the  building. 

"No,"  replied  Neilson  from  his  seat  next  the 
window,  "that's  for  a  man  who  seems  to  have  just 
reached  the  reviewing  stand.  It  looks  like  the 
governor." 

"Is  the  stand  here?"  asked  Mr.  Drexel,  his 
mouth  full  of  an  especially  excellent  pate. 
"Really,  I  apologize;  I  didn't  know  it  when  I 
asked  you  here.  These  estimable  fellows  make  so 
much  noise  that  I  can't  taste  this  course." 

"It's  just  across  the  Plaza  in  the  Park,"  said 
Neilson,  shading  his  eyes.  Another  roar  went  up. 
"Yes,  it  is  the  governor.  He's  bowing  in  every 
direction." 

"It's  a  great  thing  to  be  so  popular,"  observed 
handsome  Mrs.  Neilson. 

"Especially  on  election  day,"  added  Norton. 
"If  it  weren't  for  politics,  there'd  be  no  labor  day 
parades." 

"Nor  labor  organizations  either,  I  daresay," 
observed  Neilson,  with  a  smile.  "The  ballot-box 
gives  them  their  power." 

256 


ACROSS  A   HUMAN  SEA 

"Which  they  don't  know  how  to  use,  Neilson." 

"But  they  may  learn,  and  then,  what?" 

Norton  made  no  reply,  but  softly  jingled  the 
loose  change  in  his  pocket.  And  those  who  could 
read  him  knew  what  he  meant  by  that.  For  him 
there  was  no  power  on  earth  that  could  not  be 
quelled  and  tamed  by  money.  There  was  nothing 
to  fear  so  long  as  gold  glittered  and  men  could 
see  it. 

Luncheon  over,  Alice  Neilson  beckoned  to  her 
husband,  who  went  to  her  side  with  the  courtly 
devotion  that  always  marked  his  treatment  of  her. 
He  smiled  and  raised  his  eyebrows  as  she  whis 
pered  to  him. 

"Do  you,  really?"  he  asked. 

She  nodded,  and  he  laughed  aloud. 

"Come  now,  Ward,  what's  the  joke?"  de 
manded  his  father-in-law.  "It's  a  crime  to  make  a 
secret  of  anything  funny,  I  say/'- 

"What  do  you  suppose  this  young  wToman,  who 
has  traveled  all  through  Europe  and  hob-nobbed 
with  about  all  the  royalty  worth  mentioning,  wants 
now?" 

"Don't  know,  Ward,"  said  Drexel,  "but  it's  safe 
betting  she  gets  it,  whatever  it  is." 

The  others  looked  and  spoke  their  curiosity. 

"What  docs  she  want?"  said  the  sweet  voice  of 
Mrs.  Norton. 

"Well,  she  wants  to  see  the  American  laboring 
man  on  parade." 

"That  is  simple,  Alice,"  called  out  Helen  from 
the  window,  where  she  had  been  looking  out  with 
a  corner  of  the  curtain  held  back.  "There's  a  wide 
balcony  here,  and  we  can  put  out  chairs  and  be 
very  comfortable." 

257 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Norton  and  Drexel  excused  themselves  for  their 
cigars,  but  Neilson  would  not  quit  his  wife  even 
for  the  blandishments  of  tobacco. 

"I'll  stay  and  make  sure  that  none  of  the  ladies 
elopes  with  a  knight-errant  in  tall  hat  and  red 
sash,"  he  explained. 

From  the  balcony  the  part)''  could  see  the  pro 
cession  far  down  Broadway,  as  it  rolled  up  to  them 
in  great  waves  of  color  like  the  undulations  of 
gigantic  bands  of  variegated  ribbon.  At  closer 
range  these  masses  became  companies  of  men 
dressed  in  the  garb  of  their  respective  trades,  over 
whom  floated  banners  of  all  the  hues  of  the  rain 
bow.  Now  and  then  huge  drays  came  lumbering 
past,  bearing  the  most  picturesque  features  of  the 
procession :  the  floats  on  which  toil  was  illustrated 
by  actual  example.  Here  were  the  blazing  forges 
and  clanking  anvils  of  the  smiths ;  there  the  whirr 
of  a  monster  printing  press  spitting  out  its  thou 
sands  of  perfected  newspapers  in  the  hour;  again, 
the  brick  caverns  of  the  bakers,  with  their  attend 
ant  sprites  in  immaculate  white. 

All  these  things  were  immensely  interesting 
and  novel  to  the  two  girls  on  the  balcony,  and 
even  Neilson  had  to  admit  that  labor  could  pre 
sent  as  fascinating  a  picture  to  the  world,  when  it 
chose,  as  the  bedecked  men  whose  business  is  to 
kill. 

AJice  leaned  over  the  balcony  rail,  her  dark  eyes 
glowing  and  her  red  lips  parted  with  excitement. 
A  splendid  lot  of  fellows,  steel  workers,  in  red 
shirts,  gray  slouch  hats  and  high  boots,  were  pass 
ing,  keeping  step  to  the  music  of  a  famous  band. 
The  perfection  of  their  physical  manhood,  some 
thing  akin  to  that  of  her  husband,  appealed 

258 


ACROSS  A  HUMAN  SEA 

strongly  to  Alice's  artistic  nature;  the  band  music, 
too,  was  immensely  inspiring,  a  strong  pulsating 
tune  she  hud  never  heard  before.  She  could  not 
refrain  from  clapping  her  pretty  hands. 

"Why  don't  you  applaud,  Ward?"  she  ex 
claimed,  excitedly.  "Why,  they're  just  magnifi 
cent!  And  that  music — what  is  the  air?" 

None  knew  except  Mrs.  Norton. 

''It's  an  old  song  of  the  great  civil  war,  I  be 
lieve,"  she  said.  "I  think  it  was  'Tramp,  Tramp, 
Tramp,  the  Boys  are  Marching.' ' 

"Splendid !"  cried  Alice  Neilson,  "and  it  fits 
them,  too." 

Now  the  great  crowd,  packed  in  dense  ranks 
on  every  available  space,  the  sidewalks,  the  square, 
the  park,  the  doorsteps,  surging  to  and  fro  with 
that  awful  human  momentum  which  arises  no  one 
knows  how,  and  ends  often  in  death,  claimed  the 
attention  of  the  people  in  the  balcony.  Far  over 
toward  the  reviewing  stand  they  could  see  a  tumul 
tuous  swelling  of  the  mass  of  bodies,  and  all  at 
once  the  feeble  rope  barrier  gave  way  against  the 
force  of  those  far  behind.  They  saw  an  angry 
policeman  raise  his  club  and  bring  it  down  heavily 
on  the  head  of  a  fair-haired  youth  who  had  been 
thrust  forward  by  a  power  no  man  living  could 
have  withstood. 

"Oh,  shame!"  cried  Alice  Neilson,  hotly. 
'That  boy!" 

The  hot-headed  officer  would  have  struck  again, 
but  that  a  deep  and  sullen  growl  from  the  crowd, 
and  a  sudden  crouching  backward  as  of  an  animal 
ready  to  spring,  warned  him  of  his  danger.  More 
than  once  of  recent  years  had  the  smouldering 
resentment  of  a  crowd  burst  into  furious  flame  in 

259 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

this  very  city  of  New  York,  and  at  less  provocation 
than  now.  The  policeman  sheathed  his  stick, 
friends  took  care  of  his  victim,  and  the  incident 
was  closed. 

But  its  effect  on  the  watchers  from  the  Rotter 
dam  was  not  lost.  Neilson,  who  had  noted  the 
episode  carefully,  stroking  his  fair  mustache 
thoughtfully  the  while,  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"Did  you  see  how  the  crowd  resented  that?"  he 
said  to  Drexel,  who  had  returned  from  his  cigar. 
"A  little  knot  of  them  sprang  into  fury  like  a  mad 
dened  beast.  Some  day  they — "  But  what  it  was 
he  thought  he  foresaw  he  confided  only  to  his 
mustache. 

On  swept  the  throng  of  marching  men  for  many 
minutes  more,  until  at  last  the  men  of  the  great 
typographical  union  came  into  view  and  the  pro 
cession  halted.  The  printers  broke  ranks  and 
gathered  about  the  reviewing  stand.  Cheers  arose 
and  swept  through  the  vast  multitude. 

Alice  Neilson  had  found  a  pair  of  opera  glasses, 
and  was  leveling  them  intently  at  the  flag-be 
decked  platform.  She  saw  someone  rise  and  bow. 

''Who  is  it?"  asked  her  husband. 

"A  portly  man  with  a  big  mustache." 

"Do  the  ends  droop?" 

"Yes." 

"It's  the  governor.  He  used  to  wax  them  until 
he  became  a  candidate,  and  some  one  told  him 
that  the  wax  would  beat  him." 

More  cheers.  Evidently  the  governor  is  not 
the  only  man  who  is  wanted.  A  short,  fat  indi 
vidual  with  red  beard  and  a  redder  face  arises. 

"That's  the  lieutenant-governor,"  said  Neilson. 

260 


ACROSS  A  HUMAN  SEA 

"I  can  tell  that  face  from  here.    They  don't  want 
him." 

And  now  there  seemed  to  be  some  name  on 
the  multiple  tongue  of  the  crowd.  Rising  from 
scattered  shouts,  it  finally  gathered  into  one  great 
concentrated  clamor. 

"Craig,  Craig,"  was  the  mighty  cry. 

Then  up  rose  the  portly  governor,  turned  to 
a  man  seated  behind  him,  grasped  him  by  the  arm 
and  gently  dragged  him  to  the  front  of  the  stand. 

"Craig,  Craig,  Craig,"  burst  from  ten  thousand 
throats.  "Speech,  speech.  Hurrah!" 

The  tall,  well-knit  figure  in  black  bowed  as  if 
with  deep  respect  for  the  people.  Then  he  began 
to  speak. 

The  clear,  resonant  tones  were  wafted  across 
the  plaza  to  the  hotel  in  the  sudden  and  complete 
cessation  of  all  noise. 

"Workingrnen  of  New  York,"  they  said,  "this 
is  not  the  place  for  words.  The  army  of  industry 
is  on  the  march  everywhere  to-day  throughout 
the  land  we  love.  He  is  presumptuous  who  dares 
raise  his  voice  amid  the  countless  echoes  of  its 
tread." 

Then,  with  a  slight  inclination  of  his  head,  the 
speaker  turned  and  was  lost  to  view. 

"By  Jove !"  exclaimed  old  Drexel,  serious  for 
once,  "just  the  right  word  for  an  impression.  He 
never  overshoots  the  mark.  Some  men  would 
have  jumped  at  the  chance  to  talk,  but  he — well, 
he  knows  the  value  of  the  gift  of  silence." 

"Who  is  he?"  asked  Neilson,  greatly  interested. 

"Why,  don't  you — oh,  I  forgot;  you  went  away 
before  he  really  came  to  the  front.  But  you  must 
have  known  him — Philip  Craig." 

261 


(XV  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

''Philip  Craig  ?"  repeated  the  young  man,  puz 
zled.  "What,  not — ?"  Then  he  looked  at  Helen 
Norton,  and  bit  his  lip. 

"Yes,  sir,  the  Craig  that  used  to  be  with  John 
Norton,"  went  on  the  old  gentleman,  ignoring 
a  tap  from  his  daughter's  fan.  "You  knew  him, 
Miss  Norton?" 

"Yes,  I  knew  him." 

The  answer  was  as  calm  and  emotionless  as 
words  could  be  from  woman.  Helen  had  been 
looking  intently  at  the  platform  through  the 
glasses  she  had  borrowed  from  her  friend  at  the 
first  sound  of  the  well-remembered  name.  Now 
she  lowered  them  slowly,  and  looked  her  ques 
tioner  steadily  in  the  face. 

"Well,  he's  a  big  gun  among  the  workingmen," 
continued  Drexel.  "Has  written  for  newspapers 
and  magazines  for  several  years  on  the  condition 
of  labor  and  such  subjects,  and  mighty  good 
stuff  it's  been,  I'll  admit.  Travels  a  lot,  I  believe, 
and  lately  has  given  public  addresses.  Has  tre 
mendous  power  with  the  masses." 

"An  agitator,  consequently  dangerous,"  broke 
in  the  icy  voice  of  John  Norton,  who  had  returned 
in  time  to  catch  the  drift  of  what  had  been  going 
forward. 

"I  can't  agree  with  you,  Norton.  He's  rather  a 
peacemaker.  You  yourself  know  that  but  for  him 
the  railroad  strike  might  have  lasted  till  now,  if, 
indeed,  it  had  not  resulted  in  anarchy." 

John  Norton's  disgust  at  this  contretemps  was 
limitless.  To  think  that  the  first  day  of  his 
daughter's  arrival  in  New  York  fate  should  bring 
her  path  across  that  of  this  eloquent  demagogue, 
this  attractive  charlatan.  Yet  he  feared  no  more 

262 


ACROSS  A   HUMAN  SEA 

serious  results  than  the  recalling  of  a  girlish  fancy, 
which  might  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  an  am 
bition  which  he  had  begun  to  cherish  for  himself 
and  for  his  daughter. 

The  gathering  dusk  of  the  September  evening 
and  a  slight  chill  in  the  air  sent  the  older  members 
of  the  party  within  doors.  But  Helen,  Alice,  and 
Neil  son  remained  until  the  last  strains  of  music  had 
died  away  and  the  last  tramping  of  feet  had  been 
swallowed  up  in  the  renewal  of  the  city's  activities. 
Then  they,  too,  entered  the  window  and  were  lost 
to  view. 

But  no  one  of  them  noticed  a  black-clad  figure 
that  crossed  the  street,  threading  the  crowd  with 
firm  and  manly  strides,  and  stood  gazing  up  at  the 
balcony  until  they  had  disappeared. 

And  thus  it  was  that  Philip  Craig  and  Helen 
Norton  saw  each  other  once  more  across  a  human 
sea. 


263 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

THE  POWER  OF  TRUTH. 

PHILIP  CRAIG,  when  his  eyes  at  length  left 
the  balcony,  quickened  his  pace  along 
Broadway  to  follow  the  rear-guard  of  that 
army  that  was  fast  being  mustered  out  into  the 
weakness  of  individualism.  He  was  amazed  and 
almost  self-indignant  to  find  a  dull  ache  at  his 
heart.  Had  anyone  on  that  morning  told  him  that 
pain  would  come  from  a  glimpse  of  Helen  Norton 
standing  proudly  among  her  rich  friends,  he  would 
have  laughed.  Now,  there  was  no  mirth  in  his 
soul.  She  who  had  been  put  away  as  dead  was 
come  back  to  life,  bringing  all  the  bitterness  of  the 
knowledge  that  the  resurrection  was  not  for  him. 

For  three,  years  Craig  had  buried  self  in  the 
whirlpool  of  that  most  exacting  labor — toil  for 
others.  He  had  assumed  the  burden  of  those  who 
seemed  weak  or  oppressed,  and  wherever  powerful 
injustice  reared  Its  head  there  he  went  like  a  true 
knight-errant.  He  visited  many  states  where  the 
rights  of  men  and  women  workers  were  less  prop 
erly  safeguarded  than  at  home,  and  by  what  he  be 
lieved  to  be  hard,  earnest  endeavor,  but  what 
others  called  personal  magnetism,  he  had  brought 
under  the  bonds  of  a  common  aim  and  sympathy 
the  most  diversified  elements  of  humanity.  The 
powerful  unit  for  offence  and  defence  that  he  had 

264 


welded  often  gave  food  for  thought  to  the  stu 
dents  of  American  sociology. 

Craig  went  once  to  the  South  in  response  to  the 
Macedonian  call  of  some  of  the  more  far-seeing  of 
that  section,  and  attacked  the  monster  of  child- 
labor  on  its  own  ground.  The  dragon  was  slain, 
once  and  for  all,  for  by  his  powerful  pictures  of  its 
evils  and  his  ruthless  exposure  of  its  attendant  cir 
cumstances,  he  had  shamed  into  decency  the 
Northern  capitalists  who  had  made  it  possible. 

Meanwhile  he  had  continued  his  articles  in  the 
American  News,  always  gaining  in  felicity  of  ex 
pression  and  power  of  argument.  These  essay- 
talks,  as  he  called  them,  were  now  printed  simul 
taneously  in  more  than  thirty  cities  of  the  country, 
and,  even  making  allowance  for  Orville  W.  Price's 
natural  vein  of  hyperbole,  were  read  by  a  really 
enormous  constituency,  to  most  of  whom  the  name 
of  Philip  Craig  became  a  household  word. 

The  astute  editor  rarely  permitted  a  day  to  pass 
without  congratulating  himself  upon  his  own 
cleverness  in  engaging  this  "great  card"  for  the 
News.  He  knew  that  Craig  had  vastly  increased 
the  circulation  of  his  papers,  and,  therefore,  his 
own  revenue.  Being  no  niggard  in  the  dispensing 
of  money  for  his  paper,  where  results  told,  he  had 
once  offered  to  double  the  payment  for  Philip's 
contributions.  He  was  astounded  to  meet  with  a 
flat  refusal. 

"I  don't  know  what  to  make  of  the  fellow,"  he 
confided  to  his  managing  editor — still  Landor. 
''He  said  he  was  entitled  to  as  much  as  would  de 
fray  his  needs  and  no  more.  You'd  naturally  think 
that  he  made  a  good  thing  of  it  on  the  outside,  but 
I've  the  best  of  reasons  for  believing  that  he  never 

265 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

accepts  a  cent  from  anyone,  and  that  his  services 
to  organizations  are  given  free,  except  his  bare  ex 
penses.  The  man's  no  fool,  that's  clear.  Then 
what's  his  game?" 

For,  being  a  great  editor,  Price  was  morally  con 
vinced  that  every  man  was  playing  a  game.  His 
only  wonder  was  as  to  the  nature  of  Philip's  stakes. 

But  the  people  knew  their  special  pleader  far 
better  than  did  his  employer.  They  knew  that  he 
declined  money,  honor,  titles,  and  offices.  "I  help 
you  to  help  yourselves^"  he  often  told  them ; 
"that's  glory  enough  for  me."  And  they  believed 
him  and  loved  him,  for  even  the  basest  of  those 
who  came  within  the  quickening  radiance  of  his 
influence  knew  that  he  labored  for  them,  not  for 
himself. 

As  he  walked  sturdily  along,  dreaming  dreams 
and  thinking  of  many  things  he  knew  were  best 
buried  in  oblivion,  a  fine  rain  began  to  fall,  and  he 
turned  up  his  coat  collar  and  pulled  down  the  brim 
of  his  soft  hat. 

Wheeling  briskly  around  a  corner  he  nearly  ran 
into  a  burly  individual  who  was  slouching  along 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  an  abbreviated 
clay  pipe  between  his  teeth.  Then  there  occurred 
one  of  those  little  passages  at  dodging  in  which 
every  man  engages,  perforce,  now  and  then. 

"Pardon  me,"  said  Philip,  as  he  at  last  found 
dear  space  between  the  man  and  the  curb-stone, 
and  prepared  to  pass  on. 

"Yer'd  better  ask  pardon,"  growled  the  other. 
"You  swells  haven't  so  much  ter  do,  I'm  thinkin', 
that  yer  can't  look  where  yer  goin'." 

"Why,  my  dear  fellow,"  began  Craig  pleasantly, 
and  then  nearly  laughed  outright  at  the  term 

266 


THE  POWER   OF   TRUTH 

"swell"  as  applied  to  him.  Was  a  man  necessarily 
to  be  placed  in  that  category  if  he  preferred  a  black 
coat,  collar  and  tie  to  light  colors  and  a  bare  neck  ? 

"I  ain't  yer  feller,  and  yer  needn't  laugh,"  said 
the  burly  man  stoutly.  ''I'm  an  American  citizen, 
I'd  have  you  know,  and  have  got  as  much  right  to 
the  streets  as  you  and  your  gang,  as  yer'll  all  find 
out  some  day." 

To  Craig  this  species  was  no  stranger :  the  man 
who  is  forever  trumpeting  his  own  inferiority  by 
proclaiming  his  equality.  Something  in  the  fel 
low's  voice  had  a  familiar  tone.  He  looked  at  the 
rather  coarse  face  more  carefully,  then  he  was  cer 
tain. 

"Why,  Bruce,  is  that  you?"  he  exclaimed. 

The  pipe  carne  from  the  lips  that  opened  in  dis 
tressed  wonderment,  and  the  shaggy  eyebrows 
lifted  themselves  in  astonishing  fashion.  The 
whole  face  was  an  exclamation  point,  marking  em 
barrassment. 

"Well,  if  it  ain't  Mr.  Craig,"  was  the  gruff  ejacu 
lation.  "I  axes  yer  pardon,  but  I — I  thought  it 
was  one  o'  them  swell  chaps  who  think  they've  all 
the  right  to  the  sidewalk,  an' — well,  I  meant  ter 
show  him  that  I  was  as  good  as  he."  The  strong 
shoulders  squared  and  the  heavy  jaw  set  in  a  way 
that  was  more  significant  than  his  words.  Then 
he  bade  Philip  good  evening  and  went  his  way. 

Craig  sighed  as  he  left  his  late  antagonist,  whom 
he  knew  to  be  a  good  enough  fellow  at  heart. 
"That's  the  sort  of  sentiment  that  excites  enmity 
and  imperils  progress  now,"  he  thought.  "Later 
it  may—  But  he  resolutely  put  the  thought  from 
him  and  pursued  his  reflections  no  more;  he  could 
not  reform  the  world. 

267 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

As  Craig  reached  the  entrance  of  the  hall  where 
he  was  to  dine  that  night  with  the  marshals  and 
other  chief  officers  oi  the  parade,  he  brought  to  a 
definite  conclusion  all  the  fugitive  thoughts  that 
had  been  his  company  up  Broadway.  It  took 
shape  in  half-spoken  words: 

"I  have  no  right  to  seek  to  see  her,  even  to  think 
of  her.  My  duty  to  the  cause  I  have  taken  up  for 
bids  it.  And  why  should  I  wish  it  otherwise?  If 
her  dismissal  had  not  been  final,  absolutely,  she 
would  have  come  to  me  in  my  misfortune — and 
she  never  even  sent  an  inquiry.  Till  to-night  I 
thought  the  old  life  dead.  I  was  right;  it  is  dead." 

Thus  did  Philip  Craig  pass  sentence  upon  a 
thought,  forgetting  that  no  mortal  man  has  ever 
lived  who  could  say  to  the  turbulent  emotions  of 
the  heart  "Peace,  be  still,"  and  be  obeyed. 


The  large  ante-room  of  the  banquet  hall  where 
the  toilers'  lieutenants  were  to  eat  their  dinner, 
was  brilliantly  lighted  and  filled  with  an  animated 
crowd,  when  Philip  arrived.  The  etiquette  of 
dress  had  little  influence  among  these  sturdy  fel 
lows,  who  came  to  feast  in  the  clothes  they  had 
worn  during  the  parade.  The  air  was  full  of  the 
smoke  of  volcanic  pipes,  and  the  conversation  sug 
gested  the  idea  that  every  man  was  trying  to  shout 
down  every  other. 

A  chorus  of  rough  and  hearty  greeting  went  up 
at  Craig's  appearance.  Those  who  knew  him 
crowded  about  for  a  grip  of  the  hand,  and  those 
who  did  not  clamored  for  an  introduction.  To 
him  this  spontaneous  welcome  of  earnest  men  was 
very  touching.  We  appreciate  most  the  tribute 

268 


THE  POWER  OF   TRUTH 

whose  sincerity  we  cannot  doubt,  no  matter  from 
how  humble  a  source;  the  love  of  a  dog  is  better 
than  the  suspected  friendship  of  a  king.  So,  if 
Philip  found  himself  a  hero,  it  was  not  the  rank 
that  delighted  him,  but  the  spirit  that  prompted 
his  elevation. 

A  little  group  that  stood  apart  from  the  centre 
of  interest  found  him  a  fruitful  topic  of  discussion. 
Luke  Ford  was  there,  performing  the  difficult  feat 
of  chewing  tobacco  and  talking  at  the  same  time; 
Langmaid,  too,  his  attendant  spirit,  had  come,  and 
so  had  Bruce,  the  man  who  had  so  nearly  been 
in  collision  with  Craig.  There  were  one  or  two 
others  in  this  special  knot,  some  of  whom  evi 
dently  did  not  know  Philip. 

''Is  it  possible  that's  the  man  who's  done  so  much 
for  us?"  asked  one  of  these  in  astonishment,  turn 
ing  a  thumb  toward  Philip.  "Why,  he  looks  like  a 
minister!'' 

"Like  a  minister?  Maybe,"  growled  Bruce. 
"But  I'll  tell  yer  one  thing:  he  don't  talk  like  one. 
Nobody  goes  to  sleep  when  lie  speaks." 

"No,  they  sit  up  and  listen,"  said  Ford.  "If  he'll 
only  say  the  right  things  now — "  The  rest  of  the 
sentence  was  lost  in  a  prodigious  working  of  the 
lantern  jaw. 

"What  things,  for  instance?"  queried  another. 

"What  things?  Well,  speech  is  good — his 
speech  is  mighty  good — but  I'd  like  a  little  action. 
Howsomever,  what  am  I  to  criticise?  I'd  bet 
ter — "  But  his  self-deprecation  was  stifled  by  a 
fresh  piece  of  tobacco  of  preternaturally  large  size, 
even  for  him. 

"Will  he  speak  to-night?"  persisted  the  seeker 
for  information. 

269 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"I  doubt  it,"  replied  a  thin  man,  whose  red  sash 
looked  as  if  it  might  have  been  blown  upon  him 
from  a  clothes-line.  "He  doesn't  talk  much,  ex 
cept  when  there's  something  to  be  gained.  Be 
sides.  I  believe  this  feed  is  to  be  digested  without 
gab." 

"If  I  remember  rightly — and  I  think  I  do, — 
observed  a  fussy  little  man  with  the  air  of  one  who 
had  made  a  great  discovery,  "this  same  Craig  used 
to  be  hand  and  glove  with  that  big  plutocrat,  Nor 
ton.    How  did  he  get  over  on  our  side  ?" 

"With  the  senator,  do  you  mean?"  asked  Ford. 

"Ye?,  the  man  who  bought  his  election ;  he  buys 
everything  he  wants  you  know." 

"Oh,  well,  he  simply  couldn't  stand  the  atmos 
phere  of  that  sort  of  thing,  and  he  got  out.  Gave 
up  a  thundering  salary  and  a  lot  of  other  perqui 
sites.  And  he's  all  the  better  for  it  now." 

"Blast  Norton  and  all  his  gang,"  growled 
Bruce.  "D'ye  know  what  that  World's  Bank  of 
his  is  goin'  ter  do  for  us?  Make  paupers  of  the 
whole  of  us,  that's  what.  When  such  men  get  a 
grip  on  the  money  supply  of  the  country — well, 
look  out,  that's  all." 

During  this  conversation  Philip  had  remained 
the  centre  of  an  admiring  and  respectful  group  of 
the  workingmen.  Now  and  again  some  leader 
would  draw  him  apart  and  engage  him  in  a  whis 
pered  colloquy.  Some  left  him  with  faces  lighted 
with  hope,  others  wearing  the  look  of  gravity  and 
disappointment.  One  resolute  appearing  fellow, 
with  a  Germanic  countenance  as  clear-cut  as  if 
carved  from  marble,  seemed  especially  concerned 
at  Philip's  reply,  which  was  so  emphatic  as  to 
reach  the  ears  of  the  others. 

270 


THE  POWER  OF   TRUTH 

"Very  well,  Mr.  Brandt,"  he  was  heard  to  say, 
"if  your  union  passes  that  vote,  I  shall  withdraw 
from  any  further  efforts  in  behalf  of  your  men. 
Your  employers  are  wrong  in  many  things,  but 
they  are  right  in  this,  and  the  moment  you  give 
them  the  opportunity  to  prove  you  absolutely  in 
the  wrong,  you  forfeit  public  sympathy,  and  your 
cause  is  lost.  Such  a  course  as  you  propose  is 
not  only  illegal,  it  is  inexcusable  by  moral  law.  It 
is  just  such  things  as  these  that  have  cast  a  stigma 
on  trades-unionism.  Tell  your  associates  what  I 
have  said,  if  you  please.  At  all  events,  let  them 
know  that  I  have  warned  you." 

Henry  Brandt  frowned  with  vexation,  as  Philip 
turned  and  walked  away.  At  first  he  thought 
Philip  unjust,  and  then  he  feared  that  he  had  not 
been  a  good  advocate  of  his  own  cause. 

"Says  just  what  he  thinks,"  remarked  Luke 
Ford,  who  had  joined  Brandt  just  in  time  to  hear 
Philip's  words  clearly.  He,  himself,  had  had  that 
sort  of  thing  said  to  him  more  than  once. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  replied  the  German.  "Perhaps 
he's  right,  but  it's  hard  not  to  strike  back." 

The  dinner,  to  which  the  company  was  now 
summoned,  was  a  simple,  unostentatious  affair, 
embellished  by  no  chef's  masterpieces  and  moist 
ened  by  no  rare  vintages.  It  was  "good  American 
grub,"  as  Ford  expressed  it,  and  was  heartily  en 
joyed  by  the  sturdy,  everyday  men  who  lined  the 
long  tables  and  rapidly  stored  away  what  was  set 
before  them.  Lucullus,  who  "ate  roasted  turnips 
on  the  Sabine  farm,"  might  have  been  its  patron 
saint,  although,  truth  to  tell,  few  of  the  feasters 
would  have  recognized  him,  even  by  name. 

That  the  dark-clad  figure  near  the  centre  of  the 
271 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

head-table  had  magnetism  even  in  silence  was 
made  evident  at  the  close  of  the  dinner,  when  the 
name  of  Craig  began  to  assert  itself  in  the  general 
buzz  of  post-prandial  talk.  The  chief-marshal,  who 
presided,  turned  to  Philip  with  a  smile. 

"It  looks  very  much  as  if  we  might  have  to  sus 
pend  our  own  rule,  Mr.  Craig,"  he  said.  "I  imag 
ine  that  a  demand  for  a  speech  from  you  is  brew- 
ing." 

"I'm  ready,"  replied  Philip. 

The  marshal  looked  at  his  neighbor  curiously. 
Evidently  something  had  happened  during  the 
evening  to  change  his  determination,  for  it  had 
been  agreed  earlier  in  the  day  that  after-dinner 
oratory  was  to  be  strictly  tabooed. 

At  last  some  enthusiast  who  could  be  restrained 
no  longer  started  the  cry  of  "Craig;  speech." 
Then  it  was  taken  up  all  around  the  tables,  and  the 
man  who  had  long  been  used  to  such  compliments, 
but  who  never  heard  them  without  a  renewed  sense 
of  gratitude  that  he  had  been  enabled  to  make  such 
progress  as  he  had  in  his  work  for  humanity,  rose 
in  his  place. 

Philip's  remarks  were  brief.  After  a  few  grace 
ful  phrases  of  congratulation  on  labor's  splendid 
showing  for  the  day,  and  a  glowing  picture  of  hope 
for  the  future,  he  said : 

"I  have  but  a  few  words  more.  Their  brevity 
may  make  them  less  difficult  to  remember.  I  have 
been  approached  to-day  by  a  leader  of  men,  work- 
ingmen,  with  the  request  that  I  aid  him  to  a  certain 
end.  He  and  his  associates  are  attempting,  by  re 
fusing  to  work,  to  force  the  company  that  em 
ployed  them  to  rectify  abuses  of  which  they  were 
the  victims. 

272 


"This  is  their  right.  No  man  should  work  who 
believes  it  for  his  best  interests  not  to  do  so.  In  a 
union  in  which  membership  is  had  only  after  full 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  and  which  is  entered 
into  with  a  certain  well-defined  understanding,  it  is 
just  that  the  majority  should  rule.  The  majority 
have  voted  for  this  strike.  It  should  continue  until 
its  objects  are  obtained  or  until  the  majority  give 
up  the  struggle. 

"But  when  the  leader  of  these  men  proposes  to 
use  force — disguised  under  another  name,  it  is 
true — to  prevent  other  men  in  allied  trades,  but 
who  are  not  now  members  of  their  union,  from 
earning  their  living,  I  tell  you,  workingmen,  he 
transcends  his  rights,  and  goes  where  the  Ameri 
can  people  will  not  endorse  him. 

"I  will  uphold  any  workingman's  cause  as  long 
as  I  have  the  strength  to  do  so,  if  he  fights  fair,  but 
when  he  begins  to  apply  to  his  fellow  laboring  man 
the  same  methods  of  coercion  and  oppression  that 
he  protests  against  in  his  own  employers,  I  cannot 
and  will  not  support  him." 

For  a  moment  blank  silence  reigned  over  the 
tables  as  Craig  sat  down  and  drank  some  water. 
Hundreds  of  eyes,  some  with  the  glint  of  unfriend 
liness  appearing  in  them,  were  leveled  at  this 
strange  man  who  could  bring  capitalists  to  their 
knees  and  yet  stand  here  in  his  chosen  camp  and 
denounce  his  own. 

Then,  from  a  seat  far  down  toward  the  rear, 
came  a  resonant,  earnest  voice,  relieving  the  op 
pressive  stillness. 

"He's  right,"  it  said. 

A  sturdy  figure  arose  to  its  full  height  and  they 
saw  that  Henry  Brandt  had  spoken. 

273 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"He's  right,"  exclaimed  the  German  once  more, 
"and  I'm  wrong.  Three  cheers  for  the  man  who  is 
never  afraid  to  make  enemies  with  the  truth.  ^Three 
cheers  for  Philip  Craig!" 

The  prolonged  shouts  of  approval  that  followed 
this  manly  outburst  were  sweeter  to  Philip's  ears 
than  any  he  had  ever  heard.  He  had  won  a  battle 
for  a  principle. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

A  BOND  IN  HONOR. 

HON.  JOHN  P.  NORTON,  junior  senator 
from  the  state  of  New  York,  had  arrived  at 
his  present  political  distinction  by  a  chain  of 
circumstances  that  men  described  with  their  most 
sarcastic  smiles.  A  vacancy  had  been  providentially 
made  by  the  ill-health,  the  papers  stated,  of  Hon. 
Cyrus  Fowler,  who  immediately  undertook  a  Eu 
ropean  trip  to  restore  his  shattered  constitution. 
It  was  noted,  however,  by  travelers  from  America, 
that  Mr.  Fowler  had  become  anchored  in  Paris, 
where  he  lived  a  life  of  pleasurable  activity,  and 
spent  money  like  one  who  is  not  often  compelled 
to  balance  his  bank  books  to  find  where  he  stands. 

The  Hon.  Mr.  Fowler  had  been  one  of  the  few 
comparatively  poor  senators  of  his  time.  He  was 
the  relic  of  a  legislative  session  several  years  before 
in  which  respect  for  brains  had  somehow  managed 
to  come  to  the  fore,  and  which  resulted  in  his  selec 
tion  out  of  a  three-cornered  fight  in  which  the 
other  two  contestants  had  spent  money  so  brazenly 
as  to  bring  scandal  and  ruin  upon  their  cause. 

So,  when  the  senatorial  toga  was  thus  thrown  off 
by  the  stricken  Mr.  Fowler,  it  happened,  the  legis 
lature  being  in  session,  that  the  claims  of  John  P. 
Norton  as  a  foremost  adopted  son  of  the  state  were 
advanced  with  great  vigor  by  a  large  number  of 
eloquent  men  and  almost  as  many  influential  news- 

275 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

papers.  His  great  services  to  the  ruling  party, 
quiet,  though  no  less  effective,  were  adduced  and 
the  argument  was  enforced  everywhere  that  a 
giant  of  affairs,  such  as  Norton  had  proved  himself 
to  be.  would  furnish  just  the  sort  of  stimulus 
needed  by  the  upper  house  at  Washington.  He 
was  practically  the  only  candidate  of  his  party,  and 
was  elected  by  a  very  comfortable  plurality. 

Of  course  the  gentlemen  on  the  farther  side  of 
the  political  ditch,  made  very  noisy  charges  of 
bribery  in  the  elevation  of  Norton,  but  as  their 
powers  in  the  same  direction  were  limited  merely 
by  lack  of  contributions,  their  fulminations  were 
very  generally  regarded  as  the  outpourings  of  ma 
licious  envy. 

To  Andrew  Haven  the  senatorial  campaign  was 
a  veritable  delight.  This  malodorous  Fidus  Ach 
ates  of  the  great  financier  had  been  the  executive 
officer  in  certain  transactions  where  a  keen  brain 
and  an  unerring  instinct  for  the  limit  of  safety  were 
absolutely  essential.  He  it  was  who  suggested  to 
the  state  committee  that  Norton  might  be  induced 
to  accept  the  senatorship,  and  he  divined  in  some 
mysterious  way  the  Hon.  Cyrus  Fowler's  intention 
to  resign  several  weeks  before  the  fact  became 
public. 

At  Norton's  request,  Haven  came  to  the  office 
one  day  in  early  December,  just  before  the  session 
of  Congress  at  which  the  new  senator  was  to  take 
his  seat.  The  note  of  summons  had  requested  him 
to  bring  a  full  statement  of  the  expenses  of  the 
campaign  in  order  that  everything  might  be  put 
straight  before  Norton's  departure  for  Washing 
ton. 

Haven  came  into  the  presence  of  his  chief  in 
276 


A  BOND  IN  HONOR 

rather  a  disturbed  frame  of  mind.  For  months  no 
accounting  of  the  large  sums  of  money  entrusted 
to  him  had  been  asked,  and  he  had  begun  to  hope 
that  none  would  be.  There  was  a  rather  comfort 
able  balance  in  his  hands,  and  he  knew  he  would 
have  to  give  it  up  or  expand  some  of  the  items  of 
payment;  he  wondered  if  it  were  safe  to  do  the 
latter. 

"You  have  brought  those  vouchers,  I  suppose, 
Andrew?  Yes,  I  see  you  have.  I'll  just  run  them 
over." 

Haven  handed  him  a  bulging  linen  envelope, 
and  Norton  took  the  contents  and  shuffled  them 
rapidly  in  his  hands,  his  thin  brows  contracting  the 
while. 

"There  is  an  itemized  sheet,  I  presume?" 

Haven  inclined  his  head  deferentially. 

"Ah,  yes,  here  it  is."  He  ran  his  eye  down  sev 
eral  long  sheets  held  together  by  a  brass  pin. 
At  length  he  whistled  softly,  in  half-amused  fash 
ion. 

"Expensive,  isn't  it?"  he  observed.  "But  I  see 
you  still  have  a  few  thousands  left  of  the  last  sum 
that  was  transferred  to  your  account." 

Haven  breathed  easier,  Norton's  tone  was  so 
good-natured  that  it  augured  well  for  his  continued 
possession  of  the  money,  or  a  considerable  part  of 
it. 

"Yes,"  he  said  timidly,  "but — I  beg  pardon — 
you  know  that  Price  is  not  yet  settled  with." 

"Oh,  yes,  the  American  News  man.  What's  his 
figure?" 

Haven  coughed  deprecatingly. 

"He  has  none.  At  least  it  won't  do  to  offer  him 
money." 

277 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Ah,  one  of  the  different  kind,  eh?  Well  what 
does  he  expect  ?" 

"He  hinted  to  Stockwell  that  he  was  sorry  he 
hadn't  been  clever  enough  to  buy  Onometer  stock 
when  it  was  at  par." 

Norton  laughed  aloud. 

"Ah,  that's  it,  is  it?  Did  he  say  how  many 
shares  he  would  have  bought  if  he  had  been 
clever?" 

"He  told  Stockwell  he  was  sorry  he  hadn't 
bought  five  hundred  shares." 

Again  Norton  whistled,  this  time  with  real 
wonderment. 

"Let's  see,"  he  said.  "Onometer  is  now  310. 
If  you  transfer  to  him  five  hundred  of  your  shares 
at  par,  assuming,  of  course,  that  you  cannot  carry 
the  stock  and  do  not  care  to  make  public  your 
disposal  of  it,  he  will  make  $105,000.  Rather  a 
big  price  for  his  support." 

"But  without  it — ?" 

"I  would  have  been  defeated?  Perhaps.  Well, 
transfer  the  stock." 

The  little  man  paled  visibly.  This  transaction, 
allowing  for  the  money  he  had  in  his  possession, 
would  make  him  a  gainer  by  only  a  few  thousands. 

"But  I—" 

"Oh,  I'll  see  that  you  lose  nothing,"  said  Norton 
sharply.  "Adding  the  Onometer  stock,  the  bill  is 
pretty  heavy — but  it  will  be  worth  it.  Apropos, 
Haven,  T  suppose  the  opposition  might  call  this 
pretty  close  to  bribery." 

"Well,  I— I  don't  know." 

"But  you  do  know,"  returned  his  chief  sternly. 
"And  you  know,  too,  that  they  have  already  said 
it." 

278 


A   BOND  IN  HONOR 

Haven  shrugged  his  shoulders  deprecatingly. 
He  was  too  deferential  to  admit  the  impeachment, 
and  too  shrewd  to  deny  a  self-evident  fact. 

"But  I'm  in,"  continued  Norton,  "and  you  must 
find  a  way  to  silence — the  usual  way — the  most 
violent  of  our  critics."  He  wrote  something  on  a 
little  slip  of  yellow  paper.  "Will  this  suffice  for  all 
and  make  you  whole  ?" 

Andrew  Haven's  greedy  little  eyes  sparkled  be 
hind  his  large  spectacles  as  he  saw  the  figures. 
His  world,  which  was  bounded  equally  by  self  and 
the  potent  sign  of  the  dollar,  once  more  became 
bright. 

"It  is  generous,  very  generous,"  he  replied. 
"I— T— " 

"Men  who  do  dirty  work  should  at  least  have 
the  excuse  of  being  well  paid  for  it,"  said  Norton 
coldly.  He  had  less  consideration  for  his  tools 
than  the  stone-mason  for  his  chisel,  except  that 
similarly  he  demanded  that  they  be  kept  sharp. 
Haven  winced  at  the  cruelty  of  the  remark,  but  was 
silent  under  the  sting,  as  always. 

"Of  course,"  continued  the  other,  "there  must 
be  no  checks  and  no  apparent  gifts.  You'd  better 
make  transfer  papers  for  all  in  blocks  of  Neilson- 
Davies  Co.  stock,  and  I'll  pay  you  in  currency 
from  the  World's  Bank.  That  will  do  for  this 
morning,  Andrew." 

Haven  retired  in  his  usual  blundering,  toppling 
fashion,  nnd  hastened  away  to  begin  to  put  his 
chief's  orders  into  execution.  He  knew  the  value 
of  promptitude  in  dealing  with  such  a  man. 

Norton,  left  alone  for  a  few  moments,  began  to 
turn  over  the  personal  mail  on  his  desk.  The  first 
missive  to  catch  his  eye  was  a  delicate,  cream-col- 
'  279 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

ored  envelope  that  bore  a  dark-blue  crest  on  the 
wax  seal. 

"The  tone  of  his  note  is  certainly  more  cordial 
than  usual,"  he  said  half-aloud,  as  he  read  the  en 
closure.  "It  may  be  that  at  last — but  to-night  will 
tell."  And  he  returned  Count  Sandstrom's  letter 
to  its  envelope  and  filed  it  away  carefully. 

That  evening,  punctual  to  the  minute,  Sand- 
strom  made  his  appearance  at  the  Norton  mansion. 
His  dress  was  a  marvel  of  taste  and  fashion,  and 
his  bearing  that  of  a  diplomat  rather  than  of  a 
financier.  Always  having  the  "grand  air,"  despite 
his  lack  of  height,  he  could  not  but  impress  the 
gentle  Mrs.  Norton,  whom  he  took  into  dinner 
with  the  courtly  grace  of  one  escorting  a  princess. 

To  Helen  he  was  polite  almost  to  the  point  of  ex 
treme  reserve,  which  made  the  young  woman  mar 
vel  in  an  undefinable  way.  At  their  last  meeting — 
at  Baden-Baden,  where  the  Count  had  sojourned 
during  the  entire  stay  of  the  Neilson  party — his 
courtesies  had  been  marked  by  a  spirit  of  camara 
derie  that  had  been  very  pleasant  to  Helen.  He 
had  been  a  delightful  cavalier,  frank,  free,  and  ut 
terly  unpretentious,  and  the  American  girl's  spirit 
had  met  his  with  admiration  and  genuine  liking. 
Now,  to  her  quick  sensibilities,  he  seemed  cold, 
and  she  found  herself  speculating  as  to  the  change 
brought  about  by  environment. 

Still  he  was  a  very  pleasant  dinner-guest — she 
had  to  admit  that — and  he  made  the  elaborate 
meal  a  merry  one  by  the  brilliancy  of  his  anec 
dote  and  the  facility  of  his  wit.  Even  Mrs.  Norton 
warmed  to  his  infectious  gaiety,  and  talked  far 
more  freely  than  was  her  habit. 

"By  the  way,  Count,"  she  remarked,  on  his  as- 
280 


A  BOND  IN  HONOR 

suring  his  host  that  he  was  glad  to  be  in  America 
again,  "may  we  trust  that  your  business  on  this 
occasion  will  be  more  successful  than  when  we  first 
saw  you  here?" 

"Ah,  madame,"  he  exclaimed  in  mock  indigna 
tion,  "your  cruel  words  belie  your  kind  heart.  I 
did,  indeed,  lose  on  that  memorable  day,  but  to 
such  a  winner!  What  became  of  the  horse?  Won 
many  stakes,  I  presume?" 

"No,  indeed.  That  was  his  last  race.  King 
Capital  was  Helen's  horse,  you  know,  in  the  days 
when  he  was  plain  Dandy." 

"And  he's  been  Dandy  ever  since,"  interposed 
Helen.  "I  suppose  he  is  getting  old,  but  he 
doesn't  seem  to  know  it." 

"So  King — I  mean  Dandy — was  your  horse, 
Miss  Norton.  That  explains  his  victory.  Barba- 
rossa  was  too  gallant  to  defeat  a  lady,  even 
through  her  proxy." 

Through  all  the  exaggerated  punctilio  of  his 
bow  to  the  pretty  daughter  of  the  house,  one  could 
have  seen  that  he  was  fascinated  by  the  girl,  per 
haps  despite  himself.  It  had  not  been  a  mere  holi 
day  fancy  on  his  part  when  at  Baden-Baden  he  had 
found  himself  in  the  role  of  comrade  to  the  grave 
and  sweet-faced  American.  Nor  was  he  less  sen 
sible  of  her  charm  now  that  the  more  prosaic  do 
main  of  home  was  round  about  her. 

The  mother's  quick  perception  noted  what  the 
Count  undoubtedly  believed  to  be  admirably  con 
cealed,  and  she  wondered  a  bit,  for  in  other  days 
she  did  not  remember  to  have  seen  any  special  evi 
dence  of  captured  fancy  on  Sandstrom's  part.  She 
even  remembered  a  report  that  he  was  likely  to  be 
affianced  to  a  German  princess  of  royal  blood.  Yet 

281 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

here  was  the  perceptible  evidence  of  a  man's  attrac 
tion  toward  a  woman,  and  she  was  not  unpleased 
to  see  it,  for  no  mother  of  an  attractive  girl  ever 
yet  failed  to  resent  any  lack  of  appreciation  on  the 
part  of  an  "eligible''  man.  As  far  as  possible  from 
the  professional  or  even  amateur  matchmaker, 
Mrs.  Norton  realized  the  compliment  and  its 
possibilities  with  gratification. 

The  after-dinner  tobacco  was  consumed  in  the 
library,  where,  on  opposite  sides  of  a  ponderous, 
elaborately  carved  table,  the  men  sat  down  in  huge 
leather  chairs.  The  Count  gently  waved  back  the 
proffer  of  Norton's  slender  panatellas,  and  took 
out  his  golden,  ruby-studded  cigarette  case. 

"Your  cigars  are  excellent,  I  know,"  and  he 
looked  about  significantly  at  the  magnificent  ap 
pointments  of  the  room,  "they  must  be  to  be  John 
Norton's.  But  you  will  pardon  me  if  I  remain  true 
to  my  especial  cigarettes — made  for  me  in  the 
Khedive's  private  shops;  will  you  not  try  them? 
No?  As  for  me,  I  believe  that  I  am  of  keener 
brain  when  their  smoke  is  inhaled.  A  little  super 
stition  of  mine,  that  is  all." 

For  a  few  moments  they  blew  out  the  smoke  of 
their  respective  tobacco  in  silence.  The  union  of 
the  soft,  balmy  fragrance  of  the  choicest  of  Havana 
with  the  more  pungent,  orientally  suggestive  odor 
of  the  Egyptian  leaf,  formed  an  atmosphere  that 
an  enthusiast  would  have  called  particularly 
adapted  to  the  satisfactory  arrangement  of  any 
sort  of  plans.  Norton,  himself,  felt  something  of 
this. 

"I  am  gratified,  Count,"  he  said  at  last,  "that 
you  have  consented  to  unite  business  and  social 
pleasures.  It  is  not  my  practice  to  bring  commer- 
'  282 


cialism  into  my  house,  but  this  is  exceptional  busi 
ness,  I  take  it — business  that  must  be  done  under 
unusual  surroundings,  and  quietly." 

"It  is,  as  you  say,  exceptional,"  agreed  Sand- 
strom,  with  strong  inflection  on  the  final  word. 
"That  makes  any  breach  of  etiquette  quite  pardon 
able.  Let  us  proceed." 

Then,  for  more  than  an  hour, the  two  men  talked 
in  low  tones  across  the  table,  Norton,  perhaps, 
having  the  larger  share  of  the  conversation.  Sand- 
strorn's  keen  blue  eyes  rarely  left  the  face  of  the 
American,  and  now  and  again  he  caressed  his 
sweeping  moustachios  as  if  imparting  some  great 
secret  to  them. 

"That  is  the  situation,"  said  Norton  as  a  sum 
ming-up.  "I  have  been  frank  with  you.  What  do 
you  say  to  the  proposition?" 

"I  should  insult  your  intelligence,  Mr.  Norton," 
replied  the  Count  very  slowly,  "if  I  did  not  say  that 
you  evidently  feel  that  I  realize  clearly  your  object 
in  all  this." 

Now  as  Norton  had  not  meant  that  he  should 
reveal  his  intentions  in  the  slightest,  he  wondered 
if  he  had  underrated  the  ability  of  this  suave  and 
indolent  looking  Teuton,  or  whether  the  other  was 
merely  putting  forward  a  "feeler"  for  his  own  en 
lightenment.  He  brought  his  every  power  of  con 
centration  to  bear  on  the  Count's  next  words. 

"You  have  found,"  said  Sandstrom,  "that  in  such 
an  arrangement  as  that  between  the  houses  of 
Norton  and  of  Sandstrom,  which  figures  in  the  vo 
cabulary  of  finance  as  the  World's  Bank,  with  two 
co-ordinate  branches,  one  in  New  York,  the  other 
in  Berlin,  one  must  be  subsidiary." 

Ah !    The  blond  man  had  guessed  the  true  in- 
283 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

wardness  of  the  situation.  "What  will  he  do?" 
flashed  through  Norton's  mind.  He  listened  more 
intently  than  ever. 

"With  both  equal  in  authority,  and  an  ocean  be 
tween  them,"  went  on  the  suave,  measured  voice, 
"they  are  practically  two  banks,  having  branches 
in  the  old  and  new  worlds  respectively.  To  ac 
complish  what  you  desire — the  practical  dictation 
of  the  financial  situation — one  must  be  subservient 
to  the  other,  in  fact,  if  not  in  name.  That  is  the  sit 
uation?"  he  asked  with  a  well-bred  insistence  of  in 
terrogation. 

Norton  bowed  in  grave  assent.  In  the  fraction 
of  a  second  and  that  inclination  of  the  head  he  had 
decided  that  there  could  be  no  temporizing,  no 
splitting  of  hairs  with  such  a  man.  In  the  finesse 
of  finance  he  knew  that  he  had  met  a  peer. 

"The  only  question,  then,  is,"  continued  the 
Count,  "which  shall  rule  absolutely  and  which  shall 
obey  blindly?" 

Again  the  affirmative  bow. 

"The  question  is,  which  shall  play  the  respective 
roles?  Your  figures,  whose  accuracy  of  prediction 
I  do  not  question,  hold  out  great  inducements." 

Norton  for  a  moment  believed  that  Sandstrom 
might  be  more  impressed  than  he  had  feared,  but 
his  hope  was  short-lived. 

"For  mere  money,  per  se,"  exclaimed  his  noble 
guest  with  a  new  ring  of  earnestness  in  his  voice, 
"the  house  of  Sandstrom  has  cared  little.  I  am 
even  less,  perhaps,  a  victim  to  its  allurements. 
With  us  it  has  ever  been  power,  prestige,  the  right 
to  command !  You  ask  that  I  abandon  this  time- 
honored  policy  and  place  the  house  of  Sandstrom, 

284 


A  BOND  IN  HONOR 

the  growth  of  more  than  a  century,  at  your  dis 
posal." 

"No — not  quite  that,"  objected  Norton,  brush 
ing-  at  his  cuff  as  if  removing  a  speck  of  dust  there 
from.  But  the  Count  went  steadily  on. 

"Possibly  it  was  harshly  put,  but  that  is  the 
practical  import  of  your  proposition." 

All  this  had  been  said  in  a  tone  so  utterly  devoid 
of  sympathy,  so  suavely  grave,  that  Norton  be 
lieved  the  dissolution  of  their  business  arrange 
ment  to  be  near  its  end.  It  seemed  impossible 
that  their  relations  could  remain  unchanged  after 
what  had  passed.  He  remembered  that  he  had 
told  himself  long  ago  that  Sandstrom  was  a  man 
who  either  must  be  crushed  or  bought.  Since  buy 
ing  was  proven  to  be  impossible,  there  was  but  the 
one  alternative. 

"At  another  time,  with  another  man,"  said  his 
guest,  "I  should  either  laugh  at  such  a  proposal  or 
scorn  it.  But  I  have  come  from  Europe  with  dif 
ferent  thoughts  in  my  mind  than  ambition  for 
financial  supremacy.  If  I  yield  myself  and  my 
house  to  your  guidance,  which  I  am  confident 
would  be  a  great  financial  stroke,  it  will  not  be  be 
cause  of  material  gain  of  a  personal  nature." 

If!  There  was  something  in  that  word  that 
made  Norton's  wavering  hope  take  on  new  life. 
Yet  he  dared  not  push  the  thought  to  its  limit. 

"If  I  do  this  thing,  Mr.  Norton,  it  will  be  be 
cause  of  love." 

At  the  words  the  black  clouds  of  doubt  suddenly 
parted,  and  the  sun  shone  radiantly  beyond.  Love ! 
— Helen ! — but  it  was  still  only  a  time  to  listen. 

"Love  brought  me  from  Germany,"  continued 
Sandstrom  with  a  gentler  inflection  than  Norton 

285 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

had  ever  heard  from  his  lips,  "love  brings  me  here 
to-night.  But  for  it — and  you  will  pardon  me,  I 
know — I  should  not  have  listened  to  you  a  half 
hour.  Germany  demands  the  first  duty  of  her  chil 
dren,  and  it  is  for  her  sake  that  I  shall  accept  your 
proposition  if" — his  voice  sank  to  a  tense  and 
thrilling  whisper — "if  you  will  bind  yourself  to  me 
to  aid  her." 

Again  Norton  was  baffled,  confounded,  thrown 
into  the  vortex  of  uncertainty  and  speculation. 
Then  it  was  not  for  Helen,  not  for  the  attraction  of 
woman  for  man  that  this  astonishing  individual 
was  willing  to  yield  his  financial  sceptre.  A  mere 
sentimental  devotion  to  the  fatherland — a  feeling 
Norton  could  but  vaguely  comprehend — was  the 
mainspring  of  his  extraordinary  course.  It  was 
enough  to  stagger  judgment  and  confound  the  in 
tellect.  Thinking  of  no  fit  thing  to  say,  he  said 
nothing. 

"Draw  closer,"  said  the  Count.  Norton  obeyed, 
anathematizing  himself  for  a  puppet  in  the  hands 
of  this  masterful  German.  "Pledge  me  your  busi 
ness  honor  that  no  breath  or  hint  of  \vhat  I  shall 
tell  you  shall  pass  to  another." 

Norton  inclined  his  head  silently,  awed  by  the 
tremendous  earnestness  of  the  man. 

"Germany  is  on  the  verge  of  a  great  war.  Hos 
tilities  may  not  come  within  a  year,  but  come  they 
must  Russia,  England  and  France  will  join  com 
mon  cause  against  the  old-world  supremacy  of  the 
Fatherland.  Without  America,  Germany,  although 
she  must  win  in  the  end,  will  fight  the  fight  in 
which  victory  is  only  less  destructive  than  defeat." 

Did  this  strange  person  believe  that  he  could 
control  the  policy  of  a  nation,  dictate  alliances, 

286 


A   BOND  IN  HONOR 

thought  Norton.    It  was,  perhaps,  an  honor  to  be 
so  considered,  yet  chimerical  to  the  last  degree. 

"America  will  he,  for  her  own  sake  must  be,  neu 
tral,"  continued  Sandstrom.  "All  Germany  hopes 
for  is  that  in  some  way  she  can  rely  upon  it  that 
the  product  of  your  granaries  will  be  open  to  her. 
In  other  words,  I  am  empowered  to  ask  your  co 
operation  in  a  plan  by  which  we  may  have  absolute 
dependence  upon  all  the  wheat  and  grain  that  we 
shall  need.  The  crops  of  India  and  Russia  will  be 
forbidden  us.  Those  of  America  will  be  ample. 
Money  is  of  no  value,  but  we  have  reason  to  be 
lieve  that,  once  war  has  begun,  our  enemies  will 
leave  no  means  untried  to  prevent  our  securing 
what  we  want.  Will  you,  in  exchange  for  my 
acquiescence  in  the  plans  for  the  future  of  the 
World's  Bank,  bind  yourself  to  such  control  of  the 
American  crops  as  will  insure  Germany  whatever 
she  asks?" 

Norton  was  amazed,  yet  once  more  on  his  own 
ground.  Since  it  was  to  be  a  great  contest  in  the 
markets,  a  business  campaign  he  knew  so  well  how 
to  wage,  he  could  accept  the  commission  with  the 
dogged  determination  of  a  veteran  soldier.  But 
being  an  American,  he  answered  the  question  by 
asking  another:  "Why  do  you  think  I  can  do 
this?" 

"Because,"  was  the  reply,  "ever  since  the  night 
of  that  banquet  when  we  first  met  as  friends,  I  have 
remembered.  A  man  who  could  begin  as  you  be 
gan,  in  the  arid  deserts  of  the  West,  and  who  can 
achieve  what  you  have  achieved,  is  the  man  upon 
whom  Germany  can  depend." 

John  Norton  rose  to  his  full,  impressive  height, 
and  extended  his  right  arm  to  the  Count. 

287 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"It  shall  be  a  bond  in  honor,"  he  said  solemnly, 
and  the  men's  hands  met  in  a  long  and  firm  clasp. 

"I  thank  you,"  exclaimed  Sandstrom.  "Ger 
many  will  add  her  thanks  to  mine  at  the  proper 
time.  And  now  there  is  a  personal  matter  of  which 
I  wish  to  speak,  if  I  may." 

"Speak  freely,"  was  the  cordial  reply,  "and  com 
mand  me  to  the  utmost." 

"I  love  your  daughter,  sir,  and  I  beg  your  sanc 
tion  to  ask  her  to  become  my  wife." 

Pride  in  the  prospective  alliance  with  a  man  who 
was  little  less  than  a  prince  filled  John  Norton's 
soul,  but  his  sturdy  nature  forbade  any  revelation 
of  his  pleasure  even  to  one  to  whom  he  owed  a 
glorious  future  for  his  most  cherished  ambitions. 
Nor  would  he  barter  away  his  child's  freedom 
without  making  her  a  knowing  party  to  the  trans 
action. 

"I  am  sensible  of  the  honor  of  your  declaration, 
Count  Sandstrom,"  he  replied,  "but  my  daughter's 
heart  is  her  castle.  It  must  be  won." 

As  he  spoke  they  heard  the  faint  sound  of  a 
pianoforte  from  the  music  room  in  another  part  of 
the  great  house.  The  plaintive  air  of  a  German 
lied,  instinct  with  delicate  tenderness,  seemed  to 
the  Count  an  omen  of  good  cheer. 

"I  shall  be  a  doughty  knight,"  he  said,  with  a 
radiant  smile. 


288 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

PLACING  THE  BLAME. 

WINTER  opened  with  more  than  its  usual 
menace  to  the  poor.  Its  autumnal  fore 
runner  had,  with  its  early  frost  and  dismal 
sky,  made  gloomy  prophecies  of  what  was  to  come, 
and  these  had  been  amply  verified.  For  weeks 
there  had  been  practically  no  sun,  and  the  high 
winds,  laden  with  dust,  had  brought  disease  and 
consequent  suffering  to  those  least  able  to  endure. 
All  over  the  country  conditions  had  grown  steadily 
worse,  and  Philip  Craig  had  found  himself  encom 
passed  with  such  pressing  demands  for  his  service 
that  he  scarcely  knew  which  way  to  turn. 

For  workingmen  the  times  were  violently  askew. 
A  season  of  great  prosperity  had  suddenly  felt  the 
enormous,  if  legitimate,  reaction  from  lavish  ex 
penditure,  over-capitalization,  and  the  too-san 
guine  investment  of  money  in  any  sort  of  enter 
prise  that  could  purchase  a  hearing.  Capital  now 
became  as  timid  as  it  had  before  been  bold,  and 
countless  thousands  who  had  been  employed  under 
inflation,  found  themselves  either  terribly  crippled 
in  their  earning  capacity  or  thrown  out  of  work  al 
together.  The  western  crops  had  been  greatly  re 
duced,  adding  a  dangerous  element  to  the  situa 
tion.  Prices  of  all  necessities  rose,  but  not  the 
price  of  labor. 

The  great  working  forces  found  themselves  har- 
289 


ON   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

assed  and  torn  by  anxiety,  and  the  radical  element 
in  the  labor  organizations  cast  their  seed  upon 
fruitful  ground.  Craig  battled  long  and  hard  to 
keep  men  in  check  from  the  almost  suicidal  meas 
ures  which  they  would  have  adopted  under  the  be 
lief  that  they  were  stronger  than  they  were.  He 
knew  too  well  the  direful  effect  of  hopeless  strikes 
upon  women  and  children,  and  whenever  he  could 
patch  up  some  sort  of  truce  between  the  contend 
ing  elements  he  rejoiced  as  having  done  a  service 
to  humanity. 

But  strong  and  masterful  as  he  was,  respected 
though  he  continued  to  be,  impressive  and  adroit 
in  argument  as  he  had  come  to  be  regarded,  he 
could  not  always  succeed.  Men  smarting  under  a 
sense  of  injustice  are  rarely  far-seeing;  the  question 
of  bread  is  more  potent  than  that  of  logic. 

As  Philip  descended  the  steps  of  Harmony  Hall 
one  winter  evening,  thinking  with  grim  mirth  of 
the  misnomer,  he  realized  that  he  had  failed  dis 
mally  in  this  instance,  and  that  failure  meant  suffer 
ing  to  those  who  had  no  voice  in  the  decision.  All 
the  afternoon  he  had  been  seeking  to  dissuade 
from  an  industrial  war  the  delegates  to  a  conven 
tion  of  the  allied  organization  of  shoe-workers. 
Their  employers,  under  stress  of  bitter  competition 
from  a  great  New  England  association  of  manufac 
turers,  had  entered  into  an  agreement  to  reduce 
the  price  for  piece  work  in  such  a  way  that  the  ag 
gregate  saving  was  considerable.  The  individual 
loss  to  the  workmen  was  small  and  could  have  been 
practically  made  up  day  by  day  by  increased  speed 
in  labor.  Rut,  for  the  sake  of  principle,  the  men 
had  decided  to  fight  with  the  one  weapon  that 

290 


PLACING   THE   BLAME 

seemed  to  be  nearest  at  hand  and  most  effective — 
a  strike. 

On  the  sidewalk  he  found  Joseph  Langmaid, 
who  had  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  him  in 
the  contest.  The  fact  that  both  of  them  together 
had  not  been  able  to  stem  the  tide — for  Langmaid 
was  high  in  the  committee  of  the  organization — 
sho\ved  to  what  extent  the  temper  of  the  delegates 
had  led  them. 

"Well,  Philip,"  he  said,  darting  his  little  eyes 
about  and  blinking  hard  at  the  violent  lights  in  the 
windows  of  the  mean  shops  adjacent,  "we've  lost 
for  sure.  The  ballot  will  be  three  to  one  to  quit 
work.  God  pity  the  women  and  the  children  in 
these  awful  times." 

"Strange  they  should  be  so  blind,"  replied  Craig. 
"I  thought  that  my  statement  that  I  had  the  best 
of  reasons  for  believing  that  a  strike  now  meant  a 
shut-down  till  next  fall,  at  least,  would  have 
weight." 

"They  didn't  believe  it.  Not  that  they  doubt 
you,  of  course,  but  they  think  you've  been  misin 
formed.  Jacques  and  French  and  their  crowd  have 
made  themselves  and  the  rest  believe  that  the 
manufacturers  must  go  on  or  be  ruined.  You  and 
I  know  they  have  an  over-production  that  will  sup 
ply  the  trade  for  months." 

"It's  the  old,  old  error,  Langmaid,"  said  Philip 
sadly.  "A  man  believes  himself  indispensable  to 
society  until  he  has  withdrawn  from  the  sea  of  life. 
Then  he  finds  that  his  going  is  like  the  taking  of  a 
bucket  of  water  from  the  ocean.  But  I'm  sorry  for 
this  day's  work." 

He  looked  at  the  little  knots  of  women,  who,  too 
anxious  to  remain  at  home,  had  come  to  the  en- 

291 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

trance  of  the  hall  to  learn  what  decision  had  been 
made  in  a  matter  that  so  vitally  affected  their  lives. 
Many  already  bore  the  melancholy  imprint  of 
poverty,  and  all  talked  with  subdued  excitement. 
The  squalid  street,  with  its  blank  and  dismal  rows 
of  tenement  buildings;  its  long  line  of  seedy  loaf 
ers,  and  its  poor  little  gutter-snipes  of  children, 
still  out  at  play  because  it  was  warmer  to  play 
than  to  sit  chilled  at  home,  heightened  the  feeling 
of  depression  on  Philip's  soul. 

"As  you  say,  Langmaid,"  he  exclaimed,  includ 
ing  the  whole  scene  with  a  broad  sweep  of  his 
hand,  "God  help  those  in  the  homes.  If  I — " 

His  sentence  was  never  finished,  for  just  be 
yond  them  and  from  the  middle  of  the  street  sud 
denly  burst  a  piercing  shriek,  the  death  cry  of 
some  young  thing  in  agony,  followed  by  an  appal 
ling,  crooning  wail  still  more  awful  to  hear. 

The  two  men  saw  a  heavy  automobile  carriage 
come  to  a  stop  with  a  sudden  jolt  which  caused  the 
man  on  the  box  almost  to  lurch  into  the  street, 
while  behind  it  was  clustered  a  crowd  that  looked 
down  at  something  in  its  centre.  Then  a  frantic 
woman  picked  up  the  body  of  her  child  and  folded 
it  to  her  meagre  breast  with  a  weird  swaying  of  the 
body.  Cries  of  pity  from  the  lips  around  her 
swiftly  changed  to  oaths  and  a  dull,  vindictive  roar 
of  wrath  and  threats  of  vengeance.  A  wild  charge 
was  made  on  the  automobile,  whose  occupants 
were  looking  out  of  the  windows  in  surprise  and 
alarm. 

"Curse  them  and  their  damned  machines," 
shouted  a  shock-headed,  red-faced  man.  "Down 
with  the  aristocrats !  Mob  the  rich  murderers !" 

"Curses?  What  good  are  they?"  jeered  a  slat- 
292 


PLACING   THE  BLAME 

tern  woman  with  a  shawl  over  her  frowzy  hair. 
"If  you  are  men  you'll  do  more  than  curse." 

"Drag  'em  out !"  yelled  a  pale  boy. 

"Drive  'em  out !"  shrieked  a  buxom  girl  in  cheap 
finery.  "Don't  ye  dare  do  anything?" 

This  appeal  was  not  in  vain,  for  a  stone  went 
crashing  against  the  panels  of  the  carriage,  just 
missing  a  window. 

Philip,  closely  followed  by  Langmaid,  pushed 
his  way  through  the  mob  and  reached  the  vehicle 
just  as  a  man  had  opened  the  door  and  was  about 
to  descend. 

"Back,"  he  said  with  quiet  authority.  "Close 
the  door,  and  remain  quiet."  Something  in  his 
manner  impressed  the  man,  and  he  was  obeyed. 

Although  his  appearance  had  created  a  diver 
sion.  Philip  knew  that  he  could  not  hope  to  keep  in 
check  these  people,  whose  only  known  form  of  jus 
tice  was  physical  retaliation.  If  something  could 
only  be  done  until  the  arrival  of  the  police.  In 
desperation  he  turned  to  speak  to  the  chaffeur, 
whose  hat  had  just  been  knocked  off  by  a  well- 
directed  missile. 

"How  did  this  happen,  driver?"  he  asked, 
sternly. 

The  man's  reply  was  a  senseless  leer  and  a  lurch 
that  brought  his  face  nearly  to  Philip's  own.  Then 
was  the  truth  revealed  in  the  strong  fumes  of 
liquor  and  the  glassy,  stupid  rolling  of  the  eye 
balls. 

Craig  sprang  upon  the  steps  and  shouted  to  the 
crowd  that  was  just  making  ready  to  overturn  the 
automobile  by  the  combined  strength  of  many 
arms. 


293 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"You  are  right  in  resenting  this  crime,"  he  said, 
"but  wrong  in  placing  the  blame.  The  people 
who  are  inside,  whom  you  call  'rich  murderers,' 
are  not  at  fault.  It  is  one  of  your  own  people  who 
has  done  this  thing.  See," — and  he  dragged  the 
now  cowering  wretch  to  his  unsteady  feet,  whim 
pering  like  a  beaten  cur — "this  man  is  drunk.  I 
will  be  responsible  for  him.  He  will  receive  his 
deserts.  Here  are  the  police." 

The  crowd  melted  sullenly  away  at  the  potent 
word  and  the  clattering  of  patrol-wagon  horses  on 
a  gallop.  Craig  gave  Langmaid  a  hurried  instruc 
tion,  and  the  latter  went  to  the  window  of  the  car 
riage  and  presently  spoke  to  the  occupants. 

"Mr.  Craig!"  exclaimed  the  sergeant  of  police 
in  astonishment,  as  he  reached  the  scene.  "What 
has  happened,  sir?" 

Philip  told  the  story  with  a  few  vivid  words,  and 
the  officer  seized  the  drunken  chaffeur  and  bun 
dled  him  into  the  patrol-wagon  with  about  the 
same  consideration  he  would  have  had  for  a  log. 
He  ordered  a  policeman,  who  had  been  an  auto- 
driver  before  donning  brass  buttons,  to  convey  the 
party  to  its  destination,  one  of  the  Broadway  thea 
tres. 

As  Philip  stepped  to  the  sidewalk,  Langmaid. 
who  had  spoken  to  the  sergeant,  joined  him,  and 
they  started  homeward. 

"You  gave  the  sergeant  the  names?"  Craig 
asked. 

"Yes,  and  here  is  a  card  a  young  woman  in  the 
party  wished  me  to  give  to  you." 

"tome?" 

<:Yes.    She  told  me  to  ask  you  to  send  her  the 


294 


PLACING   THE   BLAME 

address  of  the  poor  mother,  and  she  would  see 
that  everything  possible  was  done  for  her  in  her 
affliction." 

Philip  put  the  bit  of  pasteboard  in  his  pocket, 
and  then,  obeying  a  sudden  impulse,  drew  it  out 
again.  In  the  light  of  a  shop-window  he  read: 

Miss  HELEN  NORTON. 

For  a  moment  the  name  seemed  to  burn  in  let 
ters  of  flame,  and  Craig  saw  it  shake  in  his  own 
hand.  What  was  its  import?  She  must  have  seen, 
have  recognized  him,  and  perhaps  sent  this  as  an 
envoy  of  better  things.  It  were  easy  for  her  to  get 
the  woman's  address  from  others,  he  reasoned,  so 
here  was  a  token.  Then  he  laughed  aloud.  Was 
the  meeting  of  an  instant,  during  which  he  had  not 
even  seen  her  face,  to  shake  the  belief  of  years? 
Hope,  he  realized,  was  the  imagination  of  the  un 
happy,  but  he  was  not  unhappy. 

Still,  thought  and  memory  would  not  down,  no 
matter  what  conviction  might  be,  and  as  he  walked 
along  in  the  sharp  air  to  another  meeting  where 
he  was  to  make  a  speech,  the  vision  of  a  fair  face 
and  a  June  day  long  past  rose  between  him  and  the 
crowded  city,  and  even  as  he  spoke,  clearly,  con 
cisely,  eloquently  as  ever,  he  could  have  sworn 
that  somewhere  in  the  intangible  atmosphere  about 
him  hovered  the  fragrance  of  new-mown  hay. 

As  he  was  leaving  the  hall  after  his  address,  he 
heard  his  name  called,  and,  turning,  beheld 
"Muggsy"  Bayles,  as  youthful  in  appearance  as  on 
the  day  he  won  the  American  Handicap  for  John 
Peter  Norton.  Under  his  arm  was  a  big  bundle  of 

295 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

books  that  seemed  to  threaten  his  loss  of  equilib 
rium  at  every  step. 

"Muggsy,  how  are  you?"  said  Philip  cordially  to 
his  old-time  faithful  messenger.  "And  your  father, 
how  is  he  these  days?" 

"Me  an'  Doc's  we" — began  the  ex-jockey  in 
obedience  to  the  habit  of  years,  "that  is,  I'm  all 
right,  but  father's  powerful  bad  with  rheumatiz' 
just  now,  an'  does  nothin'  but  read.  I've  just  been 
to  the  library  to  get  these  books  for  him.  An'  how 
are  you,  sir?  We  reads  a  good  deal  about  you  in 
the  papers,  Doc  an'  me,  an'  is  mighty  glad  to  know 
you've  got  on." 

After  this  preternaturally  long  speech, 
"Muggsy"  trotted  along  in  silence,  doing  his  best 
to  keep  pace  with  Philip's  strides. 

Finally  Philip  asked  him  something  about  his 
duties. 

"Pretty  much  the  same,  sir,"  he  replied,  "only 
p'raps  not  quite  so  much  to  do  since  the  ladies  kind 
'er  took  to  automobiles.  They  was  out  in  one  to 
night — op'ry,  I  guess." 

Then  Philip  briefly  narrated  the  episode  of  the 
drunken  chaffeur  and  the  mob.  Young  Bayles 
shook  his  head  sagely,  apparently  unwilling  to  cast 
the  whole  responsibility  on  the  driver. 

"The  worst  o'  them  automobiles  is,"  he  re 
marked,  "that  they  nin't  got  no  hoss  sense.  Count 
Sandstrom  prefers  'em,  though." 

"Sandstrom?    Was  he  one  of  the  party?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Him  and  Mrs,  and  Miss  Norton.  He 
goes  with  'em  everywhere  now  that  he  and  Miss 
Helen's  engaged.  Well,  good-night,  sir;  I'll  have 
to  turn  this  corner.  Good-night." 

"Good-night,  Bayles." 

296 


PLACING   THE  BLAME 

Walking  homeward,  Philip  turned  the  news 
over  and  over  in  his  mind,  surveying  it  from  all 
points  and  with  what  he  believed  to  be  calm  con 
sideration.  He  decided  at  last  that  there  was  no 
reason  for  surprise,  that  the  outcome  of  events  was 
but  natural,  and  that  his  dead  past  must  bury  its 
dead. 

As  he  went  to  sleep  that  night,  he  was  conscious 
of  a  dull,  disordered  pain  that  seemed  ever  on  the 
point  of  surrounding  his  heart.  He  was  working 
too  hard,  he  told  himself. 


Count  Sandstrom  and  Helen  Norton  rode  home 
together  after  the  opera,  owing  to  the  party's  in 
ability  to  replace  their  discarded  vehicle  except  by 
two  smaller  ones.  All  things  had  conspired  to 
rouse  the  nobleman  from  the  delightful  lethargy 
in  which  he  had  been  steeped  during  the  past 
weeks.  The  excitement  of  the  accident,  the  in 
toxication  of  sensuous  music,  the  nearness  of  a 
beautiful  woman,  the  semi-obscurity  and  the 
smooth,  exhilarating  motion  of  the  carriage,  fired 
his  heart  and  put  a  declaration  of  love  upon  his 
tongue. 

In  the  courtly  way  of  polished  men  of  his  rank 
he  made  his  avowal,  with  gentle  and  respectful 
ardor  and  an  evident  sincerity  that  touched  Helen 
deeply.  She  listened  in  silence  until  his  declaration 
ended  in  the  direct  question : 

"What  is  your  answer?    Will  you  be  my  wife?" 

"I  cannot,"  she  replied,  as  gently,  as  consider 
ately,  as  kindly  as  could  any  woman  in  the  utter 
ance   of  that  negative  which    man   dreads   most. 
The  Count  was  dismayed,  but  not  crushed. 
297 


O.V  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"But  may  I  not  continue  to  pay  my  addresses, 
my  dear  Miss  Norton,  in  the  hope  that  some 
day—" 

"That  would  be  useless,  Count  Sandstrom,"  she 
said  firmly,  "and  an  injustice  to  you.  I  shall  never 
marry," 


298 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

THE  TRUTH   AT   LAST. 

HELEN'S  thoughts  as  her  maid  arranged  her 
hair  for  the  night  were  complex,  almost  tu 
multuous.  The  sight  of  Philip  and  the  pro 
posal  of  Count  Sandstrom,  coming  in  such  start 
ling  proximity,  thrilled  her  with  the  feeling  that 
Fate  was  standing  somewhere  near,  silent,  uncom 
municative,  but  none  the  less  strong  and  over 
mastering. 

It  was  as  yet  too  early  to  put  the  incidents  in 
their  proper  relation.  The  German's  offer  had 
surprised  her;  men  there  had  been  fluttering 
about  her  wealth  and  beauty  like  the  traditional 
moths,  but  before  their  wings  had  been  badly 
singed  they  had  all  been  warned  away  by  prudence 
or  driven  off  by  circumstances. 

That  the  Count  had  really  fallen  into  the  flame 
gave  her  a  curious  feeling  of  resentment,  though 
she  admitted  the  injustice  of  it;  he  was  certainly 
all  that  a  woman  might  ask  of  a  man,  and  he  had 
been  kind  to  her.  Why,  then,  did  she  regard  his 
proposal  as  almost  an  affront,  she  asked  herself, 
and  she  saw  a  flush  on  her  cheeks  as  she  looked 
into  the  mirror  of  her  dressing-table.  She 
frowned  at  the  self-revelation,  and  the  lovely 
counterpart  frowned  back  at  her,  which  seemed 
right  and  proper  and  well-deserved. 

Was  it — could  it  be  that  her  annoyance  at  Sand- 
299 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

strom  had  been  the  outcome  of  her  remembrance 
of  the  strong  man  who  had  dared  the  anger  of  a 
rnob,  not  for  her  sake,  but  for  people  unknown? 
What  right  had  she  to  lift  the  veil  for  even  one 
brief  moment  on  the  ignominy  of  the  past?  This 
man,  who  not  only  had  degraded  himself  in  his 
quarrel  with  her  father,  but  had  shown  the  abso 
lute  pretense  of  his  love  by  his  tame  and  silent 
acceptance  of  the  destruction  of  his  hopes — was  he 
worth  a  single  regret? 

But  hearts  have  a  habit  of  rendering  their  own 
judgments  quite  independently  of  intellects,  and 
so  if  Helen's  pillow  was  moistened  that  night  with 
girlish  tears,  it  was  not  strange ;  nor  was  it  remark 
able  that  in  her  hours  of  wakeful  unhappiness  she 
almost  wished  that  she  might  be  content  to  give 
herself  to  Count  Sanclstrom  without  her  love. 

Next  morning  Helen  arose  unrefreshed  and  dis- 
spirited.  She  was  so  distraite  at  breakfast  that 
Mrs.  Norton  rejoiced  when  she  announced  her  in 
tention  of  paying  a  visit  to  Bentley-on-Hudson. 
She  went  early,  armed  with  a  carriage  load  of 
flowers,  and  filled  with  a  desire  to  forget  self  and 
its  burdens  in  the  soothing  of  the  physical  dis 
tresses  of  little  children.  Vain  hope.  Everything 
reminded  her  of  Philip  Craig  in  this  place  upon 
which  his  personality  had  been  so  strongly 
stamped.  She  could  scarcely  walk  through  the 
corridors  without  seeing  some  new  convenience, 
some  scheme  of  architecture  that  owed  its  inspira 
tion  to  him. 

All  day  long  Helen  stayed  at  the  hospital,  a  ver 
itable  angel  of  beauty  and  light  to  the  hundreds  of 
small  sufferers  whose  cots  she  visited.  With 
flowers  and  books  for  the  better  cases,  and  swyeet 

300 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

sympathy  for  the  desperately  ill,  she  passed  from 
ward  to  ward,  and  for  a  time  forgot  her  own  de 
pression  in  the  joy  of  doing  good.  It  had  been 
her  pleasure  from  the  first  to  remain  unknown, 
as  far  as  being  the  donor  of  the  hospital  was  con 
cerned.  She  felt  that  it  would  hurt  her  to  have 
the  children  regard  her  as  other  than  a  visitor  who 
was  kind  to  them. 

One  pathetic  mite  of  a  girl,  long  afflicted  with 
spinal  disease,  died  before  Helen's  eyes,  her  feeble 
arms  encircling  a  doll  that  had  been  a  gift  of  the 
"lady,"  and  a  happy  smile  on  her  lips  because  the 
fair  vision,  somehow  suggesting  heaven,  had  been 
before  her  glimmering  gaze  until  the  last.  When 
the  pure  little  spirit  had  gone  home,  Helen  knelt 
by  the  tiny  bed  and  prayed  for  a  life  as  blameless. 

There  the  Rev.  Adoniram  Bentley  found  her, 
and  his  gentle  eyes  grew  moist  at  the  sight.  But 
she,  much  as  she  loved  the  great-hearted  clergy 
man,  could  not  look  at  him  without  wretchedness, 
for  he  was  the  most  potent  factor  of  any  in  arous 
ing  memory  pictures  of  the  days  when  Philip  was 
her  all  in  all.  She  went  home  soon  after,  chas 
tened  somewhat  by  the  experiences  of  the  day,  but 
no  less  under  the  haunting  spell  of  remembrance. 

As  she  entered  the  house,  dusk  had  shadowed 
everything,  but  she  saw  dimly  her  father's  form 
sitting  in  the  library.  At  that  moment  a  light 
sprang  into  his  study  lamp,  and  she  thought  she 
noted  a  look  of  anxiety  upon  his  illumined  face. 
She  stepped  softly  to  his  side. 

"Ah,  my  dearest/'  he  said,  with  a  smile,  "what 
a  day  of  it  you  have  had !  And  how  goes  it  with 
Bentley-on-Hudson  ?" 

301 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"All  is  well  there,  father.  At  least,  as  well  as 
can  be  with  such  a  place." 

"But  are  you  not  tired  with  such  a  long  visit, 
seeing  so  much  suffering?" 

"No,  indeed,  not  so  tired  as — " 

He  divined  her  thought,  and  laughed  gently. 

"As  I  seem  to  be,  you  mean.  Why,  do  you 
think—?" 

"Yes,  father ;  there  was  something  in  your  face 
a  moment  ago  that  looked  as  if  you  were  troubled. 
Is  it  so?" 

"What  a  wonderful  little  sooth-sayer  you  are, 
dear,"  he  replied.  Then  gravely:  "Well,  yes, 
Helen,  I  am  troubled.  I  have  just  heard  of  your 
refusal  of  Count  Sandstrom." 

"And  you  regret  it?" 

He  bowed  silently. 

"But,  father,  I  do  not  love  him." 

"Yet  you  love  no  one  else?" 

It  was  a  bold  stroke,  Norton  knew,  yet  such  was 
his  way  in  business,  and  why  not  in  matters  of  the 
heart? 

"No,"  she  replied  decisively,  and  he  felt  that  his 
bolt  had  reached  its  mark. 

"Then  why  reject  him,  a  gallant  and  worthy 
gentleman,  of  whose  love  and  name  any  woman 
might  be  proud?" 

"But  marriage  without  love!"  There  was  a 
ring  of  indignation  in  her  words.  "Would  you 
counsel  that?" 

"It  is  frequent,"  he  answered  calmly.  "Respect 
is  often  the  unrecognized  preface  to  love,  and  mar 
riage  may  turn  the  pages  to  the  beginning  of  ro 
mance." 

There  was  no  answer,  and  the  father  resumed 
302 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

still  more  gently :  ''Perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  telling 
you,  but  I  had  set  my  heart  on  seeing  you  his 
wife.  I  love  you  dearly,  and  much  of  my  ambition 
has  centred  around  your  future.  You  are  no 
longer  a  child,  and — you  are  affectionate  and  de 
mand  affectionate  care.  Your  mother  and  I  are 
growing  old — "  this  with  solemn  emphasis — "and 
my  life  has  been  laborious.  I  may  not  be  spared 
for  long  to  shield  you." 

"Oh,  father!" 

"With  you  the  wife  of  this  man,  who  has  de 
clined  an  alliance  almost  royal  for  your  sake,  I 
should  feel  that  I  hnd  fulfilled  my  duty  to  you." 

He  paused  to  let  his  words  sink  deeply  home. 
In  a  faint  whisper,  almost  inaudible  to  his  atten 
tive  ears,  Helen  replied  : — 

"Would  it  make  you  so  very  happy  if  I  should 
consent;  if — if  he  would  take  me  without  love?" 

"Very  happy,  Helen."  The  unprejudiced  ob 
server  might  have  detected  a  note  of  triumph  min 
gled  with  the  gratitude  in  his  voice,  but  the  girl 
felt  only  that  she  was  to  repay  the  debt  of  years 
of  indulgence  and  generosity. 

"Then  I  will  try  and  do  as  you  wish."  she  said 
slowly.  "Give  me  a  few  days  to — to  accustom  my 
self  to  this,  and  you  may  tell  Count  Sandstrom." 

She  kissed  her  father  on  the  forehead  and  then 
left  him,  closing  the  door  as  gently  as  if  shutting 
up  forever  something  fragrant  and  precious  in  her 
past. 

For  some  moments  Norton  sat  as  motionless  as 
a  statue  in  his  great  leathern  chair.  Then  he 
sighed  deeply,  and,  raising  his  left  hand,  observed 
with  seeming  surprise  the  livid  welt  upon  his 
thumb. 

303 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"After  all,"  he  said  aloud,  "it  will  be  for  her 
good,  and  love  will  come.  With  Sandstrom  as  my 
son-in-law,  anything  is  possible." 


No  sooner  had  Helen  pledged  her  word  to  her 
father  than  a  certain  relief  came  soothingly  to  her 
troubled  mind.  Gone  was  the  harrowing  tension 
of  uncertainty,  the  feeling  that  she  was  dividing 
her  household  against  itself.  She  accepted  the  sit 
uation  calmly,  and  even  fell  to  wondering  what 
the  responsibilities  and  privileges  of  her  new  life 
would  be. 

A  great  tenderness  for  all  that  had  been  near 
and  dear  to  her  girlhood  days  came  upon  her,  and 
made  her  heart  warm  toward  all  the  world.  Her 
mother  noted  a  new  depth  of  affection,  and  re 
joiced  at  what  her  husband  told  her  that  night. 
Surely  a  yielding  that  had  worked  this  subtle 
transformation  must  be  right,  she  thought. 

Helen  went  to  her  favorite  nooks  in  the  garden 
next  morning  with  the  feeling  that  she  was  to  bid 
farewell  to  old  friends.  The  grave  of  her  Angora, 
which  she  had  reared  from  kittenhood  to  fiercely 
solicitous  maternity,  the  grape-arbor,  the  little 
tennis-court,  the  great  shade  tree  under  which  she 
had  loved  to  lie  prone  upon  the  grass  with  a  book 
— all  these  unsentient  things  seemed  to  say  good- 
by  and  wish  her  well. 

The  stables,  nearest  to  her  heart,  as  ever,  stirred 
her  emotions  the  most.  There  was  Dandy,  sedate 
now  in  his  great  box-stall,  but  putting  on  the 
counterfeit  of  youth  at  the  sight  of  his  gift-bearing 
mistress.  She  stroked  his  nose  gently,  pressed  her 
face  against  his  warm  muzzle,  and  talked  to  him  in 

304 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

whispers,  knowing  well  that  the  brutes  who  love 
us  would  never  betray  our  confidences  if  they 
could. 

She  had  just  rewarded  the  noble  animal  with  a 
final  pat  and  an  extra  lump  of  sugar,  and  was 
leaving  the  stall,  when  the  elder  Bayles  appeared 
upon  the  scene,  leaning  heavily  on  two  canes. 

"Lord  love  ye',  Miss  Helen,"  he  exclaimed 
heartily,  "it's  like  'a  breath  from  the  verdure-clad 
hills,'  as  the  poet  says,  to  see  ye  in  the  stable 
again." 

"What's  the.  matter,  Doc?"  she  asked  solicit 
ously,  noting  the  crippled  condition  of  the  old 
man. 

"Oh,  these  canes?  Rheumatiz.  It's  mighty  bad 
this  morning." 

"And  yet  you  smile." 

"Why,  yes,  of  course;  it  might  be  worse.  Be 
sides,  I  think  I  caught  it  from  poor  old  Cowboy 
just  before  he  died,  an'  it  sorter  consoles  me  to 
think — you'll  laugh  at  it.  Miss  Helen — that  my 
takin'  it  eased  the  hoss's  pain  a  bit." 

Helen  did  not  laugh,  for  the  old  trainer's  fancy 
appealed  to  her  nature  strongly.  She  lent  him  the 
assistance  of  her  strong  arms,  and  together  they 
went  into  the  little  den  near  the  feed  boxes,  which 
the  house  servants  had  long  ago  nicknamed  "Doc 
Bayles'  surgery."  There  they  found  "Muggsy," 
astride  of  a  saddle  on  the  floor  and  performing 
some  queer  evolutions  with  an  enormous  curved 
needle  and  a  trail  of  waxed  thread.  He  jumped  up 
quickly  and  dusted  a  chair  with  his  cap. 

"Sit  down,  Miss  Helen,"  he  said  gruffly,  "me  an' 
Doc's  glad  ter  see  yer.  This  here  library  smells 
kinder  horsey,  but  we  knows  yer  like's  the  flavor, 

3°5 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Sence  Doc's  took  with  rheumatiz  all  he  does  is  ter 
come  in  here  and  wrastle  around  with  the  books. 
I'll  bet  he's  arter  one  of  'em  now." 

"My  memory  ain't  what  it  used  ter  be,  Miss 
Helen,"  said  the  senior  Bayles,  ignoring  his  hope 
ful's  remarks,  as  usual,  and  fumbling  about  the 
shelves  that  occupied  one  side  of  the  room.  "Ah, 
yes,  this  is  it." 

With  somewhat  uncertain  grip  he  drew  down  a 
volume,  and  began  opening  it  at  one  place  and 
another  where  wisps  of  hay  indicated  something 
especially  interesting. 

"But  I  think  I  quoted  right.  Yes,  here's  the 
place.  Where  are  my  glasses?  You  read  it,  Miss 
Helen,  where  the  mark  is." 

"  'I  never  could  believe,'  "  began  the  girl. 

"Yes,  that's  it,"  interposed  the  old  man,  chew 
ing  gently  at  the  erstwhile  bookmark,  and  gazing 
placidly  at  the  ceiling. 

"  'I  never  could  believe  that  providence  had 
sent  a  few  men  into  the  world,  ready  booted  and 
spurred  to  ride,  and  millions  ready  saddled  and 
bridled  to  be  ridden.' ' 

"That's  it,"  repeated  Doc.  "Your  father  gave 
me  that  book,  Miss,  an'  them's  my  sentiments." 
With  which  vigorous  expression  of  opinion  he 
hobbled  off  to  the  stable  yard,  giving  a  parting 
smile  to  the  woman  he  could  think  of  only  as  the 
flaxen-haired  little  girl  he  had  taught  to  ride. 
Helen  noted  idly  that  the  book  was  a  volume  of 
Macaulay's  History  of  England,  and  let  it  drop 
into  her  lap. 

Left  alone  with  Helen,  "Muggsy"  seemed  pecul 
iarly  ill  at  ease.  He  fidgeted  on  his  saddle-seat, 
and  several  times  opened  his  mouth  as  if  to  speak, 

306 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

but  put  cracked  corn  into  it  instead.  The  girl 
noted  his  embarrassment. 

"What  is  it,  Muggsy?"  she  asked  in  amusement. 

"Well,  you  see,  Miss,"  the  young  man  blurted 
out,  as  if  greatly  relieved,  "I  had  a  kind  of  a  mes 
sage  for  yer." 

"A  message  ?    What  is  it  ?" 

"It's  here."  And  he  drew  from  his  pocket  a 
soiled  bit  of  paper,  yellow  with  the  dust  of  cracked 
corn,  which  he  proceeded  to  unfold.  It  was  a  little 
card  which  he  handed  to  Helen. 

"It's  the  address  of  the  mother  of  the  child  who 
was — who  was — " 

"Yes,  I  know,"  interrupted  Helen,  softly.  She 
saw  that  the  card  was  her  own,  changed  only  by 
a  penciled  street  direction. 

"How  did  you  come  by  it?"  she  queried  curi 
ously. 

"Mr.  Craig  gave  it  to  me  when  I  met  him  the 

other  night  after  one  of  his  meetings,  an'  I — well, 
I " 

"Forgot  it.  I  suppose,"  she  prompted  kindly. 

"No.  Miss,  not  that;  but  I  didn't  see  you  and  I 
didn't  like  to  send  it  to  you." 

"Indeed?  And  why  not?"  she  asked  coldly, 
though  she  repented  at  the  next  moment,  for  she 
knew  that  the  faithful  little  man  did  not  merit  it. 
But  at  first  blush  the  return  of  the  card  in  that 
fashion  seemed  like  a  studied  insult  on  Philip's 
part,  although  she  laughed  at  the  idea  as  soon  as 
it  was  born.  However,  something  was  necessary 
to  remove  the  impression  she  saw  she  had  created 
on  the  wondering  little  face  before  her. 

"And  Mr.  Craig,  is  he  well?"  she  asked  casually. 

"Well?  Yes,  I  s'pose  so.  He's  allus  workin', 
307 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

and  must  be  well  to  stand  it.  But  sometimes  I 
wonder  if  he  has  all  recovered." 

"He  has  been  ill,  then?"  Her  voice  sounded 
like  that  of  another  to  her  own  consciousness. 

"Well,  not  lately.  I  meant  his  long  spell  after 
the  accident." 

"Accident?  What  accident?"  It  was  the  real 
Helen  who  was  speaking  now. 

"Muggsy"  gazed  at  her  with  wide-mouthed  as 
tonishment,  even  forgetting  the  corn,  that  came 
near  choking  him  as  he  drew  a  deep  breath  of  sur 
prise. 

"Why,  don't  you  know?"  he  exclaimed.  He 
saw  on  the  instant  the  futility  of  the  question,  and 
proceeded  to  tell,  in  his  odd  way,  the  whole  story 
as  he  knew  it.  Helen  listened  with  dilated  eyes. 
No  romance,  no  history  had  ever  gripped  her 
heart  like  this  simple,  pathetic  recital. 

"When  was  this,  you  say?"  she  asked,  with  a 
tightening  at  her  throat  and  a  dread  lest  she 
should  hear  what  she  longed  to  hear. 

"Lemme  see,"  replied  "Muggsy"  judicially. 
"Yes,  it  was  the  very  day  I  saw  him  about  the  note 
I  brought  to  you  from  him.  P'raps  you  remember 
— What's  the  matter,  Miss  Helen  ?  Shall  I  call— 

"It's  nothing,  Muggsy.  A  little  faintness.  It — 
it  is  close  here." 

She  had  grown  as  pale  as  death,  and  leaned 
trembling  against  a  harness  case.  The  book  of 
"Doc"  Bayles  had  fallen  from  her  lap,  and  she 
stooped  to  pick  it  up. 

"You  were  saying — the  note,"  she  continued 
mechanically. 

"Yes,  the  note,"  repeated  the  small  man,  help 
lessly,  pondering  over  his  next  speech.  He  idly 

308 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

watched  the  book  in  Helen's  hands,  and  saw  some 
thing  white  slip  from  its  place  and  flutter  to  the 
floor.  Bending  from  his  seat  on  the  saddle,  he 
picked  it  up. 

"Bless  my  eyes,  if  that  ain't  it  now !"  he  ejac- 
lated.  "I  remember  he  gave  it  back  and  I  put  it 
in  one  of  Doc's  books.  'Give  it  to  her  when  she 
will  take  it,'  he  said  to  me." 

Helen  stretched  forth  her  hand,  as  it  were, 
across  the  chasm  of  years,  and  received  the  mis 
sive,  that  seemed  to  burn  in  her  fingers.  A  great 
desire  to  be  alone,  to  get  beyond  any  human  eyes, 
however  kindly,  came  over  her,  and  she  turned  to 
go- 

"I  think  /  will  dispose  of  this,"  she  said,  with  a 
laugh  that  haunted  "Muggsy"  for  some  time  after 
she  had  passed  into  the  open  air. 

In  the  grape  arbor  Helen  sat  down  and  read  the 
words  she  had  long  ago  refused  even  to  see.  The 
letter  was  brief,  earnest,  manly,  eloquent,  appeal 
ing  in  its  tenderness  and  thrilling  in  its  denuncia 
tion  of  the  injustice  that  had  condemned  him  to  a 
life  alone.  She  could  not  doubt  the  words  that 
came  so  strangely  from  the  past  to  accuse  her. 

"I  have  been  forced  to  leave  your  father's  em 
ploy."  she  read,  "because  my  ideas  of  business 
rights  and  wrongs,  of  the  limits  that  should  be  set 
upon  individual  oppression  by  the  power  of  com 
bined  capital  do  not  agree  with  his.  Whether  I 
am  right  or  wrong,  you  shall  be  the  judge.  My 
love  for  you,  Helen,  is  deeper  and  truer  to-day 
than  it  ever  was,  for  I  feel  that  I  am  more  than 
ever  worthy  of  you." 

Tears  b1inded  her  eyes,  and  a  great  wave  of  piti 
ful  reproach  engulfed  her  soul.  She  knew  that  she 

309 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

had  read  the  truth — and  she  had  been  the  first  to 
judge  him  unheard.  Even  her  father,  stern  and 
relentless  as  he  was  in  business,  had  not  done 
that! 

But  what  had  her  father  done?  It  was  horrible 
for  a  daughter  to  think  of,  but  she  relentlessly  pur 
sued  the  logic  of  the  situation.  He  had  known 
the  truth,  and  had  given  her  no  hint  of  it.  An 
drew  Haven  had  lied.  And  she,  childish  dupe  that 
she  had  been,  had  believed  the  worst,  had  been  a 
traitor  to  the  loyalty  of  love.  How  she  must  be 
despised,  and  how  justly ! 

But  there  should  be  no  more  mistakes,  no  more 
groping  in  the  dark.  Thrusting  the  note  into  the 
bosom  of  her  dress,  she  hurried  into  the  house,  put 
on  her  furs,  and  started  for  her  father's  office  by 
train.  Half  an  hour  later  she  was  admitted  to  his 
private  room. 

"Why,  Helen,  what  brings  you  here?"  asked 
Norton  with  surprise,  as  he  looked  up  from  a  bal 
ance-sheet  on  his  desk. 

His  daughter  walked  proudly  to  his  side  and 
held  out  Philip  Craig's  letter. 

"Read  it,"  she  commanded,  answering  the  ques 
tion  in  his  eyes. 

Norton  opened  the  envelope  carelessly,  but  as 
the  handwriting  met  his  eye  he  started  in  amaze 
ment.  As  he  read  on  slowly  he  felt  that  his  daugh 
ter's  gaze  never  left  his  face,  and  when  he  had 
finished  he  handed  the  letter  back  to  her  without 
meeting  her  glance. 

"Is  that  the  truth  ?"  she  asked,  with  an  icy  con 
tempt  that  froze  his  nerves.  This  man,  who  could 
face  a  world  of  men  in  bitterest  enmity  without  a 
tremor,  was  helpless  before  the  outraged  dignity 

310 


THE   TRUTH  AT  LAST 

of  a  woman.  But  even  in  his  humiliation  he  felt  a 
pride  in  the  fact  that  she  was  his  daughter. 

"Is  it  true?"  she  said  again. 

He  could  not  lie,  he  could  not  even  temporize 
with  this  girl  who  seemed  suddenly  to  have  be 
come  a  young  goddess  of  justice. 

"Yes,'"  he  answered,  "it  is." 

A  moment  more,  and  he  found  himself  alone.  A 
head  clerk  who  entered  long  afterwards  found  his 
chief  staring  rigidly  out  of  the  window,  and  was 
obliged  to  speak  several  times  before  the  great 
man  seemed  aware  of  his  presence. 

On  that  same  afternoon,  Helen  went  to  her 
mothers  room,  and  remained  there  for  half  an 
hour.  At  the  close  of  their  interview  the  mother 
was  in  tears.  The  girl  soon  after  left  the  house, 
clad  in  the  simple  skirt  and  jacket  she  had  worn  on 
shipboard. 

John  Norton  returned  to  his  home  in  moody 
silence,  and  sought  his  wife  at  once.  The  ser 
vants  noted  with  wonderment  that  dinner  that  day 
was  not  served,  although  neither  of  their  em 
ployers  went  from  the  mansion. 

Early  in  the  evening  the  well-ordered  routine 
of  the  Rev.  Adoniram  Bentley's  life  was  broken 
into  by  a  visit  from  the  daughter  of  the  man  he  re 
garded  as  a  philanthropist.  Her  story  was  quickly 
told,  and  his  protection  implored.  The  good  man 
could  see  no  other  way  than  to  grant  Helen's  plea, 
for  he  knew  that  her  strength  of  character  would 
keep  her  to  her  avowed  course,  even  should  he  re 
fuse  to  be  a  party  to  it.  And  foremost  in  the  plan 
of  assistance  was  his  solemn  promise  that,  come 
what  might,  he  would  admit  Philip  Craig  to  ng 
confidence, 

3" 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

A   LUNCHEON    BEARS  FRUIT. 

IN  a  private  room  of  the  Metropole  Club,  styled 
"The  Billionaires"  by  the  envious  outside  its 
portals,  two  men  sat  at  table.  The  bright 
April  sunlight  glistened  on  polished  crystal,  and 
set  in  relief  the  strong  faces  of  the  twain.  It  was 
whispered  about  the  club  that  John  Norton  and 
Orville  W.  Price  were  taking  luncheon  together. 

The  financier-senator  was  rarely  seen  about  the 
Metropole  of  late,  and  never,  within  the  memory 
of  the  oldest  servant,  had  he  been  known  to  eat  his 
mid-day  meal  there  before.  His  usual  luncheon 
was  severity  itself,  but  to-day  he  had  ordered  an 
elaborate  repast,  which  he  barely  tasted.  His 
presence  at  the  club  at  this  hour,  when  he  was  in 
variably  at  his  office — indeed  his  appearance  in 
town  at  all,  for  Congress  was  still  in  session — was 
enough  to  set  the  wiseacres  in  a  flurry  of  excite 
ment,  and  to  start  the  portentous  rumor  that  he 
had  an  object  in  view.  And  so,  indeed,  he  had. 

He  had  come  to  New  York  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  having  an  hour's  talk  with  the  heavy- 
jawed  man  who  now  sat  opposite,  and  who  did  his 
full  duty  as  a  trencherman.  It  was  not  a  part  of 
Norton's  plan  to  let  the  editor  know  this,  and 
when  they  rnet  quite  casually  at  Price's  customary 
hour  for  lunching,  and  the  Senator  invited  him  to 
be  his  guest,  the  thing  seemed  so  spontaneous  that 

312 


A  LUNCHEON  BEARS  FRUIT 

the  journalist  was  quite  charmed,  and  responded  in 
most  amiable  mood.  Thus  it  happened  that  they 
sat  vis-a-vis  in  the  finest  small  room  in  the  club, 
and  chatted  pleasantly  of  everything  except  the 
business  that  brought  John  Norton  to  New  York. 

For  his  part,  Price  was  preparing  to  turn  the 
conversation  into  channels  that  might  prove  useful 
to  himself.  He  knew,  as  did  all  who  were  conver 
sant  of  affairs  below  their  surface,  that  Senator 
Norton  had  become  the  real  leader  of  his  section 
of  the  dominant  party.  The  days  when  senators 
were  expected  to  serve  an  apprenticeship  of  silence 
in  the  upper  branch,  and  to  aspire  at  once  to  no 
methods  of  actual  influence,  had  long  since  passed 
away,  and  Norton  found  that  his  gigantic  wealth, 
his  imperious  force  and  his  great  acumen  had  pre 
vailed  with  senators — most  of  whom  were  only 
less  rich  than  himself — as  with  other  men,  and  that 
he  ruled  because  he  was  able.  His  political  life 
was  undertaken  purely  as  a  means  to  an  end,  and 
that  end  was  to  direct  and  control  certain  matters 
in  legislation  that  concerned  the  business  inter 
ests  of  himself  and  his  business  associates.  For 
statecraft,  per  se.  he  cared  nothing.  That  sort  of 
thing,  he  believed,  might  have  been  necessary  in 
the  early  days  of  the  republic,  but  not  now.  Even 
his  absolute  control  of  state  politics  gave  him 
merely  the  satisfaction  of  know-ing  that  he  thereby 
held  the  business  and  financial  policies  of  the  com 
monwealth  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 

The  meal  was  now  approaching  that  state  where 
Norton  felt  that  generalities  must  cease  to  figure 
in  the  conversation.  He  saw  that  the  choice 
wines,  which  he  never  tasted,  were  manifesting 
themselves  in  Price's  flushed  face,  and  he  deter- 

313 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

mined  to  proceed  to  the  matter  in  his  mind.  The 
editor  had  mentioned  the  severity  of  the  past 
winter,  and  had  expressed  curiosity  as  to  the 
probability  of  less  straitened  times. 

"This  European  war,"  he  said,  "seems  to  be  in 
juring  us,  instead  of  bringing  us  prosperity." 

"Yet  I  remember  that  the  News  told  us  in  big 
type  last  winter,"  rejoined  Norton  drily,  "that 
when  Europeans  went  to  war,  Americans  would 
have  the  prosperity  the  foreigners  lost." 

"That's  the  strangest  part  of  it.  And  the  only 
result  has  been  to  raise  the  prices  of  food  stuffs, 
and  shake  public  confidence." 

"That's  just  it,"  interrupted  Norton  quickly. 
"It's  all  a  matter  of  confidence,  and  I  think  it  is 
due  you,  Price,  to  tell  you  that  the  administration 
and  its  advisers  attribute  no  little  of  this  lack  of 
confidence  to  the  press." 

"To  the  press?"  echoed  the  editor  in  astonish 
ment. 

"Yes,  sir,  to  its  eternal  policy  of  croaking,  in 
season  and  out.  I  know  what  you  would  say,"  he 
continued,  noting  a  wave  of  deprecation  on  Price's 
part.  "Of  course  it  is  business  with  you  fellows  of 
the  opposition.  In  these  days,  when  great  news 
papers  must  be  supported  by  the  masses,  it  has 
become  essential  to  chief  eminence  in  circulation 
that  the  so-called  popular  journal  should  pose  as 
a  type-and-ink  Moses  to  lead  the  people  out  of 
bondage." 

Price  smiled  in  spite  of  himself,  but  said  nothing. 
He  would  not  argue  self-evident  facts  with  so  as 
tute  a  man  as  Norton. 

"Now  it  seems,"  continued  the  senator,  "to  of 
ficial  Washington,  at  least,  that  it  is  time  that  a 


A  LUNCHEON  BEARS  FRUIT 

halt  be  called  in  this — well,  this  calamity  cam 
paign." 

"But,"  objected  Price,  toying  with  a  glass  of 
rare  Tokay,  his  especial  delight,  as  Norton  knew, 
''is  there  not  more  reason  now  than  ever  for  the 
insistence  of  the  press  that  more  respect  be  paid 
to  the  rights  of  the  common  people?  Provisions 
go  up,  wages  go  down,  or  cease  altogether,  strikes 
and  lockouts  multiply;  in  fact,  the  future  looks 
blacker  every  day.  Why  do  the  facts  not  warrant 
the  newspaper  warnings  and  the  demands  for  a 
change?" 

"Argument  is  fruitless,"  rejoined  Norton,  with 
more  decision  than  he  had  yet  shown.  "It  is  cer 
tain  that  agitation  will  only  shake  confidence  still 
more.  With  confidence  restored,  conditions  would 
soon  adjust  themselves.  A.t  all  events,  it  is  felt  in 
Washington  that  unless  something  is  done  to 
check  this  firing  of  public  sentiment,  we  shall  be 
forced  by  the  lower,  or,  if  you  please,  the  poorer 
classes — at  all  events  by  those  who,  having 
nothing  to  lose,  feel  that  any  change  would  be  a 
gain — into  a  condition  very  like  anarchy.  But 
you  should  know  this  as  well  as  I. 

"I  had  not  meant  to  mention  this,"  he  con 
tinued  after  a  pause,  "but  you're  a  good  fellow, 
Price,  and  I'll  be  frank  with  you.  The  American 
News  is  held  chiefly  responsible  for  the  socialistic 
spirit  in  the  people  that  bids  fair  to  undermine  our 
institutions." 

"The  News?  Why?  Many  other  papers  do 
the  same." 

"Exactly.  The  small  fry  swim  in  your  wake. 
Reforms  will  come,  but  they  must  come  slowly. 
Harsh  dealings  with  investments  by  capital  will 

315 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

inevitably  result  in  a  panic  that  will  tumble  our 
commercial  structure  about  our  ears.  Neither  you 
nor  I,  Price,  can  afford  this,"  he  added  signifi 
cantly. 

The  editor  thought  of  his  many  investments  and 
wondered  how  much  truth  there  was  in  the  predic 
tion.  Yet  he  was  not  prepared  to  surrender  in 
tame  fashion. 

"The  people,"  he  said  blusteringly,  "are  my 
chief  investments,  Mr.  Norton." 

"True,"  returned  the  other  calmly,  "but  tell  me 
who  feed  the  life-blood  to  your  paper,  the  people 
with  pennies,  or  those  with  thousands;  the  men 
who  buy  your  product  on  the  street  corners,  or 
the  business  houses  that  make  it  possible  for  your 
presses  to  run;  the  individual  with  the  penny,  or 
the  man  with  the  advertising  contract?" 

"Well,  of  course,  advertising — ,"  Price  began 
feebly.  Norton  took  out  his  watch. 

"It  is  later  than  I  thought,"  he  exclaimed.  "I 
have  said  more  than  I  should,  perhaps,  but  I  will, 
for  personal  friendship,  go  a  little  further.  I  tell 
you.  Price,  that  if  there  is  not  a  radical  departure 
from  your  present  methods,  Washington  is  deter 
mined  to  find  a  way  to  end  your  newspaper 
career." 

"End  my  newspaper  career,"  said  the  editor 
hotly.  "Why  the  damned — "  he  was  about  to  add 
"presumption,"  but  something  in  Norton's  face 
checked  him. 

"Did  you  ever  know  me  to  lie?"  asked  Norton 
sternly.  "Well,  I  pledge  you  my  word  of  honor 
that  unless  you  use  your  newspapers  for  the  res 
toration  of  confidence,  they  will  be  crushed, — 
crushed  completely  and  forever." 

316 


A  LUNCHEON  BEARS  FRUIT 

The  hidden  suggestion,  the  sublime  confidence 
of  power  tmrevealed,  was  more  potent  than  any 
specific  threat  could  have  been.  Price  stammered, 
hesitated,  and  then  said  helplessly :  "What — what 
am  I  to  do?" 

"As  a  friend  I  should  advise,  as  the  first  step, 
that  the  tone  of  the  writings  of  your  man  Craig 
be  modified  materially." 

"Impossible.  He  writes  what  he  thinks.  The 
American  News  is  not  responsible." 

"Ah,  there  is  your  error,"  returned  Norton  with 
his  thin-lipped  smile.  "It  is  the  power  and  pres 
tige  of  your  papers  that  give  him  his  hold  upon 
the  people." 

"But  he  will  not  submit  to  dictation.  I  tried  it 
once — a  mere  suggestion — ." 

"And  he  refused,  and  said  he  would  go  else 
where?" 

"Not  exactly.  But  he  did  say  he  must  write 
what  he  thought,  or  not  at  all." 

"Then  let  him  go,  Price." 

"But  my  papers?"  pleaded  the  editor.  "He  does 
so  much  for  them." 

"With  the  rabble,"  returned  Norton  contemptu 
ously.  "Will  they,  or  your  advertisers,  pay  your 
paper  bill  and  your  employees?  You  can  control 
the  one,  for  no  other  paper  of  any  power  would 
print  Craig's  stuff.  As  for  the  advertisers,  Wash 
ington  knows  how  they  are  to  be  reached.  And 
now  I  must  bid  you  good  day,  Price,  for  I  have 
to  catch  the  Capital  Limited  at  three.  I  trust 
you  will  carefully  consider  what  I  have  told  you." 

Price  did  consider  carefully — almost  prayerfully 
for  a  man  whose  religion  was  of  his  own  forming 


317 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

— and  he  could  see  no  hope  of  escape  from  his 
manifest  duty. 

He  hurried  to  the  office  of  the  News  and  sum 
moned  Mr.  Wilkinson,  the  new  managing  editor, 
who,  after  a  few  years'  service  on  the  paper,  had 
been  elevated  to  the  seat  occupied  by  John  Wesley 
Landor,  owing  to  the  latter's  unfortunate  error  in 
printing  the  details  of  a  scandal  in  high  life.  It 
was  not  that  Price  did  not  like  a  spice  of  naughti 
ness  in  the  News,  but  the  odor  of  this  especial 
exposure  happened  to  be  very  offensive  to  the 
senses  of  Herbert  Fish  Winslow,  whose  dry  goods 
houses,  as  everybody  knew,  fattened  Price's  bank 
account  more  than  any  other  ten  interests  com 
bined. 

"What's  on  for  to-morrow,  Mr.  Wilkinson?" 
asked  the  chief,  when  the  young,  chubby-faced 
man  was  in  the  great  presence. 

"Big  story,  sir,"  said  the  managing  editor  con 
fidentially.  "Flemming — he's  a  great  digger-out 
of  queer  yarns — has  a  crippled  nephew  up  in  a 
hospital  on  the  Hudson.  He  went  to  see  him  the 
other  day,  and  saw  there  a  nurse,  the  daughter  of 
one  of  the  city's  richest  men." 

"Indeed!  A  very  sympathetic  'story'  should 
be  made." 

"Oh.  there's  more  to  it.  It  seems  the  girl  is 
there  under  an  assumed  name,  and  that  she  left 
her  home  after  some  sort  of  a  quarrel  six  months 
ago." 

"That  is  a  'story',"  exclaimed  Price,  rubbing  his 
plump  hands.  "What  did  you  say  her  name  was?" 

"Helen  Norton,  daughter  of  the— 

"Daughter  of  the  senator?"  He  sprang  to  his 
feet  in  great  excitement  and  faced  the  astounded 


A  LUNCHEON  BEARS  FRUIT 

Wilkinson  in  a  blaze  of  wrath.  "Kill  the  story 
and — and  the  man  who  wrote  it.  Is  it  in  type?" 

"No." 

"Who  knows  it  besides  you  and  Flemming?" 

"No  one." 

"If  it  gets  around,  you'll  go  the  next  minute. 
Flemming  can't  keep  his  mouth  shut.  Pack  him 
off  to — to  South  Africa — anywhere — on  any  pre 
text,  but  get  him  out  of  the  way." 

The  speechless  Wilkinson  needed  no  further  im 
petus  to  speedy  action.  Two  hours  later  he  him 
self  saw  Flemming  board  a  western  express  and 
reiterated  his  instructions  to  him  not  to  appear 
in  New  York  again  until  he  had  received  orders  to 
do  so,  or  had  discovered  in  the  coast  cities  of 
Japan  a  certain  mysterious  new  sort  of  warship 
said  to  be  building  in  that  country.  He  added 
such  imaginative  details  as  he  knew  would  make 
the  quest  practically  impossible. 

Flemming,  after  the  manner  of  the  trained 
journalist,  to  whom  space  and  time  are  merely 
relative  terms,  took  his  abrupt  trip  calmly  enough. 
He  knew  that  it  meant  leisure,  pleasant  experi 
ences  and  a  liberal  allowance  of  money.  He  did 
not  quite  like  the  "killing"  of  his  "story"  of  the 
millionaire's  daughter  who  was  a  nurse,  and  on 
his  way  over  he  wrote  an  entertaining  narrative 
by  deftly  weaving  fact  and  fiction  together,  and 
sent  it,  with  photographs  he  had  secured,  to  a 
certain  monthly  magazine  that  made  a  specialty 
of  personal  sketches  of  the  great,  more  or  less 
highly  colored.  That  done  he  proceeded  towards 
Japan  with  a  light  heart  and  an  approving  con 
science. 

Price's  interview  with  Wilkinson  had  been  for 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

the  purpose  of  ascertaining  if  Philip  Craig's  "copy" 
for  the  morrow  had  been  received,  or  if  he  was 
likely  to  come  to  the  office  that  day,  but  his  excite 
ment  attending  the  discovery  that  he  had  been  on 
the  very  verge  of  arousing  the  bitter  enmity  of 
John  Peter  Norton  with  the  ill-fated  Flemming 
story,  had  driven  all  else  from  his  mind.  Now  he 
remembered  that  something  had  to  be  done  along 
the  lines  of  the  senator's  direction,  and,  learning 
that  Craig  was  in  the  building,  he  summoned  him 
to  the  private  room  in  the  steel  tower.  He  greeted 
his  contributor  with  exaggerated  deference. 

"How  are  you,  Craig?  Sit  down,  pray,"  he  said. 
"Wilkinson  tells  me  you  are  not  looking  well,  and, 
indeed,  I  fear  he  is  right.  It  may  be  that  this 
daily  grind  of  'copy'  is  too  much  for  you,  added  to 
your  other  work.  Hadn't  you  better  take  a  vaca 
tion?" 

Craig's  eyes  opened  wide  for  an  instant.  He 
was  not  conscious  of  any  special  reason  for  solici 
tude  on  the  editor's  part.  He  must  look  more 
wearied  than  he  felt,  he  reflected.  But  he  repelled 
the  suggestion  earnestly. 

"I  cannot,  Mr.  Price,"  he  exclaimed.  "Now,  if 
ever,  my  work  is  needed." 

"Yes,  I  know;  but  you  must  give  up  some 
thing." 

"You  are  kind,  but  really  there  is  no  need.  My 
thinness  and  pallor  are  partly  constitutional, 
though,  I  admit,  the  strain  is  great." 

Price  saw  that  he  must  take  another  tack,  or 
port  would  never  be  reached. 

"I  thought  you  might  not  be  averse  to  a  rest," 
he  said  gravely,  "but  since  you  are.  I  must  speak 
frankly.  Your  articles  have  aroused  criticism  as 

320 


A  LUNCHEON  BEARS  FRUIT 

tending  to  excite  lawlessness  and  shake  public  con 
fidence/* 

Indignation  leaped  to  Philip's  face  and  voice. 
That  he,  the  pleader  for  sobriety  in  all  things, 
should  be  accused  of  fomenting  the  very  things 
he  wished  to  avoid ! 

"Indeed,"  he  replied.  "What  have  I  ever  done 
except  to  counsel  moderation  and  respect  for  the 
law?" 

"1  know,  I  know,"  said  Price  with  more  suavity, 
"but  unfortunately  all  men  are  not  alike.  Others 
interpret  to  their  own  ends.  You  know  yourself 
that  violence  often  springs  from  movements  under 
taken  with  the  most  righteous  motives  by  law- 
abiding  men." 

"Yes,  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  do,"  was  the  regretful 
answer.  "But  the  evil  would  come,  anyway.  No 
article  of  mine  can  be  pointed  to  that  should  not 
make  for  patriotic  action  that  is  creditable  to  any 
American." 

"Yes,  yes.  But — well,  the  fact  is  that  I  must 
ask  you  to  aid  me  in  restoring  public  confidence." 

Craig  looked  the  heavy,  flushed  man  straight  in 
the  eye.  There  was  no  doubt,  no  mystery  about 
it  now.  This  poseur,  this  fictitious  "friend  of  the 
people"  was  asking  him  to  drug  his  convictions 
and  give  the  lie  to  every  manly  impulse  of  his 
soul. 

"By  lying?"  he  asked,  sternly. 

"Well,  yes,  if  you  call  it  that  to  aid  the  nation  in 
time  of  need." 

"It  is  the  people  who  are  in  need,  Mr.  Price. 
If  the  nation  requires  aid,  it  is  aid  from  the  people 
against  the  politicians  who  twist  and  turn  the  laws 
to  their  own  advantage.  Your  meaning,  how- 

321 


OiV  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

ever,  is  plain.  You  wish  to  dictate  my  writings. 
Such  writings  would  be  useless  to  us  both.  The 
only  alternative  is  that  they  cease  altogether." 

"Let  them  cease,  then !"  cried  Price,  in  a  crim 
son  rage,  his  anger  at  the  coolness  with  which  his 
arguments  were  met  putting  to  flight  his  desire 
to  compromise  with  the  man  who  had  such  influ 
ence  over  the  readers  of  his  papers. 

"As  you  please,"  returned  Craig  calmly,  and 
with  a  bow  he  turned  and  left  the  room. 


CHAPTER   XXXIII. 

A    NEW    PORTFOLIO. 

THE  summer  had  not  advanced  Philip  Craig 
very  far  from  the  sudden  severance  of  his 
relations  with  the  American  News  before 
he  discovered  that  the  event  was  of  greater 
moment  than  he  had  realized  when  he  ''kicked 
over  the  traces,"  as  Price  expressed  it  in  a  letter 
to  John  Norton.  Several  papers  to  which  he  of 
fered  his  services,  among  them  some  that  had 
tried  to  win  him  away  from  the  News  in  the  old 
days,  politely  refused  his  tenders  with  various  ex 
cuses.  "Our  payroll  is  full" ;  "we  are  already  sup 
plied  with  an  abundance  of  similar  material"  were 
some  of  the  reasons  advanced  by  the  editors  to 
whom  he  wrote. 

Only  one  of  them  was  honest  in  the  expression 
of  his  views.  This  was  Maurice  Rosenfeld,  form 
erly  the  city  editor  of  the  American  News,  and 
now  editor  and  publisher  for  the  new  syndicate 
that  had  purchased  the  Argus  and  its  branches, 
already  a  serious  rival  to  the  News. 

"To  be  frank  with  you,  Craig,"  he  had  said. 
"I'd  like  to  print  your  stuff.  It  would  win  the 
Argus  much  of  the  following  Price  lost  when  he 
dropped  you.  But  I  simply  can't  do  it.  No  news 
paper  is  so  great  as  to  be  able  to  scorn  conserva 
tive  sentiment  as  reflected  by  its  advertisers.  The 
community  is  scared,  and  it  is  not  possible  for  a 

323 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

paper  to  continue  banging  away  at  public  confi 
dence  at  such  a  time  and  not  practically  close  its 
counting  room  doors.  It  was  all  well  enough  to 
cry  'wolf,  wolf  when  the  animal  wras  only  problem 
atical,  but  now  that  he  is  actually  in  sight  it  is 
necessary  to  tell  people  to  look  the  other  way  or 
try  and  persuade  them  that  it  is  not  a  wolf  at  all, 
but  a  lamb  with  an  unfortunate  habit  of  yelping." 

"Then  you  admit  the  desperate  straits  of  the 
poor  and  middle  classes?"  Philip  had  asked  earn 
estly. 

"Admit  it?     It's  not  necessary." 

"Then  why  wouldn't  it  be  the  best  policy  for 
at  least  one  paper  to  tell  the  truth?" 

"Truth,  my  dear  Air.  Craig,"  Rosenfeld  had  re 
plied,  his  thin,  dark  little  face  lighting  with  the 
pleasure  of  a  valuable  discovery,  "is  a  beautiful 
thing  in  the  abstract,  or  at  the  bottom  of  a  well, 
but  in  a  newspaper  office  it  is  often  about  the 
worst  possible  asset.  I  venture  to  say  that  the 
paper  that  tried  to  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth 
and  nothing  but  the  truth  for  ten  days  would  find 
its  editor  in  jail  or  an  insane  asylum  within  a  week. 
Newspapers  control  and  direct  popular  sentiment 
to  a  degree;  when  the  limit  is  reached,  then  they 
yield  to  public  opinion,  and,  with  a  wry  face,  must 
beat  an  ignominious  retreat,  perhaps  before  the 
advance  of  the  very  monster  of  excitement  they 
themselves  have  created." 

So  Philip  had  gone  away,  with  an  added  respect 
for  Rosenfeld's  acumen  and  a  more  comprehen 
sive  view  of  the  ethics  of  journalism. 

"Whatever  the  reason,"  he  said  to  his  father 
one  night,  "no  editor  of  all  who  were  once  so 
anxious  to  get  me  away  from  the  News  will  give 

324 


A  NEW  PORTFOLIO 

me  an  opportunity  for  a  hearing — not  even  as  a 
gratuitous  contributor." 

"Ah,  weel,  Philip,"  returned  the  old  man,  rock 
ing  slowly  in  his  beloved  chair  the  while,  ''it's  the 
way  o'  the  warrld.  The  mair  a  body  does  for 
some  people  the  greater  the  contempt  he  is  like  tae 
incur  sometimes.  It's  a  verra  human  failin'  not  tae 
like  the  rnon  who  shows  us  our  fau'ts." 

"But  they  shall  not  gag  me,"  exclaimed  the 
younger  man,  writh  the  air  of  one  who  had  not 
been  listening.  "Now,  more  than  ever,  my 
message  must  go  to  the  people." 

"But  how,  Philip,  how?    Ye  canna — " 

"Langmaid,  Fairbrother,  Ford  and  Brandt  and 
several  other  prominent  leaders  are  coming  here 
tonight,  aren't  thev?" 

"Yes." 

"I  will  meet  them." 

"But  I  thought  ye—" 

"That  must  rest  for  the  present.  We  must  move 
at  once.  I  will  go  to  my  room  and  get  my  plan 
into  practical  working  shape  before  they  arrive. 
Call  me  when  they  are  all  here." 

Angus  pondered  long  as  to  what  his  son  was 
intending.  With  closed  eyes,  he  thought  of  that 
and  many  other  things  as  he  gently  swayed  back 
and  forth,  until  the  noise  of  footsteps  on  the  porch 
warned  him  of  the  approach  of  the  company.  He 
was  glad,  for  of  late  the  little  sessions  of  the  read 
ing  club  had  grown  quite  infrequent ;  Ford  and 
Langmaid  were  too  busy  with  practical  affairs, 
while  Fairbrother  had  been  kept  at  home  by  the 
wishes  of  his  wife,  who  had  begun  to  develop  a 
species  of  melancholia.  Now  it  seemed  like  the 

325 


OAr   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

good  old  times,  with  the  added  zest  of  the  presence 
of  noted  leaders  in  his  home. 

By  twos  and  threes  they  arrived,  the  last  being 
Brandt,  the  keen-witted,  resolute  German,  who 
greeted  Angus  with  the  serious  courtesy  of  his 
race.  When  he  arrived,  the  old  man  addressed  the 
gathering  briefly. 

"My  son,  Philip,  wishes  tae  speak  tae  ye  a'  on 
an  important  topic  touchin'  the  cause,"  he  an 
nounced.  "I'll  ca'  him." 

In  another  moment  Philip  entered  the  room, 
with  a  light  in  his  eyes  that  Ford  noted  and  re 
joiced  to  see. 

"Ah,"  he  muttered  to  his  neighbor,  Langmaid, 
"he  looks  as  if  he  meant  to  act — at  last." 

Philip  began  to  speak,  very  quietly  and  earn 
estly. 

"You  all  know,"  he  said,  "that  my  influence 
through  the  press  has  been  stifled.  You  do  not 
know  how.  1  have  learned  today  that  powerful 
influences  were  exerted,  that  a  great  senator  of  a 
great  state  came  to  this  city  with  no  other  object 
than  a  two-hour  interview  with  Price,  of  the 
American  News,  who,  the  same  afternoon,  forbade 
me  his  columns." 

There  were  hisses,  groans,  and  cries  of  "shame" 
and  "gag-law"  at  this. 

"Price  would  not  have  abandoned  the  course 
which  has  made  his  paper  what  it  is,"  he  con 
tinued,  "except  under  great  pressure.  The  atti 
tude  of  Washington  shows  that  the  power  of  the 
press  is  feared.  'Weakerdom,'  as  I  characterize  the 
men  and  women  for  whom  we  fight,  is  feared. 
Do  you  know  what  that  means,  my  friends?" 

"It  means  that  it  is  time  to  act,"  exclaimed 
326 


A  NEW  PORTFOLIO 

Ford  sharply,  and  his  words  were  received  with 
murmurs  of  assent  and  approbation.  Philip 
smiled  approval,  at  which  Ford  wondered  for  a 
moment. 

"You  are  right.  We  must  act.  How?  I  had 
thought  of  starting  a  newspaper  in  the  interests 
of  'Weakerdom,'  but  the  time  for  that  has  passed." 

"It  has,"  said  Ford,  and  again  the  others  agreed. 

"It  is  time  that  the  oppressed  should  prove  their 
strength,  should  demonstrate  their  unity.  Capital 
is  organized,  but  it  has  the  weakness  of  overcap 
italization,  like  a  building  too  high  for  its  base. 
Dividends  paid  on  watered  stock  are  sapping  the 
life-blood  of  the  people.  More  than  ever  with 
America  it  is  'every  man  for  himself.'  For  their 
own  salvation  the  people  must  act.  We  must 
show  our  strength,  peaceably  but  effectively." 

"Peaceably !  Humph !"  growled  Ford  half- 
aloud.  "Haven't  we  been  peaceable  long  enough, 
and  had  nothing  come  of  it?" 

"I  am  of  no  politics,"  went  on  Philip  calmly. 
"I  vote  for  men.  I  am  working  for  no  class;  work- 
ingmen  and  employers  are  alike  to  me.  Both 
have  rights  to  be  respected ;  both  may  have 
wrongs.  I  am  for  the  people  who  suffer;  who  are 
oppressed.  Let  us  plan  together." 

Then  for  over  an  hour  Philip  talked  rapidly 
and  earnestly,  now  and  then  reading  from  notes 
his  plan,  which,  his  enthralled  listeners  found,  was 
the  perfecting  of  a  unique  organization.  Under 
the  simple  name  of  "United  Men  of  America"  he 
proposed  to  gather  all  who  labored  for  a  daily 
wage  for  one  purpose — self-assertion. 

"This  must  not  be  a  political  party,"  he  con 
cluded,  "It  must  be  a  political  potver,  working 

327 


through  and  upon  present  political  parties  and 
present  office-holders.  In  no  other  way  shall  we 
be  taken  with  the  seriousness  that  the  situation 
demands." 

Even  Ford  joined  in  the  cheers  that  followed. 
His  keen  scent  detected  the  growth  of  an  organ 
ization  which  might  easily  be  made  to  fulfil  his 
cherished  dreams  of  "action." 

Then  details  were  earnestly  discussed,  and  every 
man  was  called  upon  to  present  his  views.  As  for 
way  and  means,  Philip  gave  assurances  that  money 
for  the  expenses  of  organization  would  be  readily 
forthcoming.  When  the  meeting  broke  up  the 
little  party  went  forth  with  a  definite  idea  in  their 
minds.  It  was  settled  that  organizers  should  be 
appointed  for  every  state,  and  that  Philip  should 
speak  for  the  cause  in  every  great  city. 

Through  the  summer  the  work  went  on,  re 
ceived  with  intense  enthusiasm  everywhere.  Open- 
air  meetings  all  over  the  country  served  to  recruit 
hundreds  of  thousands  under  the  new  banner,  so 
that  with  the  beginning  of  autumn  the  growth  of 
the  strange  order,  whose  members  pledged  them 
selves  simply  to  "the  good  of  fellow  man,"  filled 
Washington  with  astonishment  and  some  degree 
of  apprehension.  The  practical  results  of  the 
movement  could  not  be  foreseen,  since  its  founders 
made  no  claim  for  it.  But  the  name  was  not  re 
assuring.  "United  Men  of  America"  was  regarded 
as  a  veiled  threat,  and  the  party  in  power  feared 
for  the  results  on  the  fall  congressional  elections. 

One  hint,  however,  the  politically  wise  were 
quick  to  take.  It  was  voiced  by  Craig  in  the 
rather  primitive  form  of  handbills  and  posters. 
"Every  interest  is  represented  in  the  councils  of 

328 


A  NEW  PORTFOLIO 

state  at  Washington,"  it  read,  "except  that  of  the 
man  who  works." 

When  the  inspired  newspapers — chief  among 
which,  curiously  enough,  was  Mr.  Orville  W. 
Price's  American  News — failed  to  check  the 
growth  of  the  new  brotherhood  by  crying  "social 
ism,"  and  when  the  politicians  began  to  see  a 
definite  effect  on  the  elections,  the  leaders  of  the 
dominant  party  awoke  one  day  and  determined 
that  something  must  be  done.  Just  what  was  a 
question  that  puzzled  the  most  astute  of  them. 

The  suggestion  for  action  came  from  a  hitherto 
despised  source,  a  weak-voiced,  weak-minded  sen 
ator  from  a  western  state,  who  had  vaulted  into 
the  upper  chamber  from  the  heights  of  his  heap 
of  gold,  amassed  in  the  manufacture  of  a  superior 
sort  of  pickles.  That  man  one  day  had  an  idea. 
Andrew  Haven  might  have  explained  the  seeming 
paradox  by  telling  that  it  took  full  two  hours  to 
force  that  idea  into  the  pickle-senator's  head,  and 
to  make  him  realize  fully  what  John  Norton 
wanted  him  to  do. 

However,  the  idea,  once  implanted,  did  fairly 
well,  and  finally  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  spon 
taneous  sentiment  of  the  Senate.  In  this  form  it 
reached  the  ears  of  President  Burlingame,  at  a 
time  when  public  dissatisfaction  at  existing  condi 
tions  was  at  its  height.  In  due  course  of  events 
the  idea  bore  fruit  in  the  shape  of  a  message  from 
the  President  to  Philip  Craig,  requesting  an  inter 
view. 

Philip's  respect  for  the  office,  as  well  as  the  man, 
whom  he  had  personally  known  as  the  governor  of 
a  great  state,  brought  him  speedily  to  Washing 
ton.  Within  a  few  hours  he  was  closeted  with  the 

329 


OAr  SATAX'S  MOUXT 

chief  executive.  At  the  close  of  the  interview  he 
returned  to  his  hotel  to  ponder  alone  on  the 
strange  dispensation  fate  was  again  revealing  to 
him.  In  the  evening  he  saw  the  President  again, 
and  announced  his  decision.  Within  an  hour  he 
started  on  his  way  to  New  York. 

The  members  of  Congress  were  now  beginning 
to  assemble  for  the  extra  session  which  President 
Burlingame  had  called  for  the  third  week  in  Oc 
tober  "in  view  of  the  self-evident  demand  for  the 
sitting  of  the  supreme  legislative  body."  His  ene 
mies  called  this  action  a  desperate  attempt  to 
avert  defeat  in  the  elections;  even  the  leaders  of 
his  own  party  had  opposed  the  move,  as  unneces 
sary  in  view  of  the  quickly  impending  regular  ses 
sion  and  as  giving  the  public  clamorers  an  exag 
gerated  idea  of  their  own  importance. 

But  since  James  Burlingame  had  succeeded 
from  the  vice-presidency  to  the  executive  chair 
early  in  the  spring,  by  reason  of  the  death  of  his 
predecessor  from  a  chronic  malady,  he  had  sur 
prised  and  disappointed  many  of  those  who  had 
been  instrumental  in  putting  him  in  the  second 
place  on  the  ticket  by  exhibiting  initiative  of  the 
righteous  sort,  and  by  clearly  demonstrating  that 
he  was  by  no  means  the  servant  of  the  chiefs  in 
the  councils  of  his  party.  He  therefore  adhered 
stoutly  to  his  determination,  and  the  extra  session 
was  convened. 

After  some  minor  appointments  had  been  con 
firmed  by  the  Senate,  President  Burlingame  sent 
a  message  to  Congress  recommending  the  creation 
of  a  "Department  of  Industry"  as  an  addition  to 
the  official  bureaus  of  the  government.  "Com 
merce  under  the  recent  law  has  its  department,"  he 

330 


A  NEW  PORTFOLIO 

wrote.  "Industry,  that  makes  our  nation  what  it 
is,  should  not  be  ignored." 

With  the  utmost  celerity  a  bill  was  passed  under 
suspension  of  the  rules,  putting  the  President's 
wishes  into  practical  shape.  A  day  after  it  had 
been  signed,  the  portfolio  of  the  new  department 
had  been  offered  to  Philip  Craig,  of  New  York, 
and  accepted. 

With  the  public  announcement  of  the  name,  the 
country  was  very  doubtful  if  the  appointment 
would  be  confirmed  by  the  Senate.  Bitter  enmity 
toward  Craig  was  known  to  exist,  especially 
among  those  whose  word  was  the  law  of  the  upper 
branch,  and  laboring  men  already  denounced  the 
capitalist  senators  for  their  prospective  action. 
But  the  unexpected  happened,  and  Philip  Craig's 
nomination  was  confirmed  with  absolute  una 
nimity.  Senator  John  P.  Norton  had  moved  the 
confirmation  himself,  and  no  other  of  his  party 
cared  to  be  put  on  record  as  against  him.  With 
his  personal  friends  the  significant  remark  that  the 
whole  thing  \vas  a  "sop  to  Cerberus"  did  much  to 
allay  their  anxiety  and  convince  them  that  no 
harm  was  to  come  to  wealth. 

Labor  and  the  common  people  greeted  the  ap 
pointment  as  a  victory  of  great  and  splendid  possi 
bilities.  Bon-fires  blazed  on  thousands  of  hill-tops, 
enormous  torch-light  parades  of  the  "United  Men 
of  America"  took  place,  thanksgiving  services 
were  held,  and  everywhere  sprung  up  the  hope  of 
the  dawn  of  a  better  day. 


33 ! 


CHAPTER   XXXIV. 

A  BRACE   OF  INTERVIEWS. 

ATYPICAL  January  storm  was  raging  over 
Washington.      Great   gusts   of   wind    tore 
clown  the   broad  streets,   laden   now  with 
rain,  again  with  sleet,  and  finally  with  heavy,  moist 
snow,   that  clung  to  everything  like  splashes  of 
paint,  and  transformed  the  city  into  an  arctic  cap 
ital,  magnificent  in  its  massive,  white  beauty. 

A  short,  stout  man  whose  identity  was  com 
pletely  hidden  in  the  darkness  by  the  folds  of  his 
storm  coat  and  the  eaves  of  his  slouch  hat,  and 
who  alighted  from  an  open  automobile  that  had 
come  to  a  stop  before  an  imposing  mansion  on 
Alaska  A. venue,  was  in  no  mood  to  see  any  of  the 
picturesqueness  of  the  night.  He  shook  himself 
in  canine  fashion  and  beat  his  hat  against  the  iron 
work  of  a  handsome  gate  set  in  a  heavy  stone  wall 
that  surrounded  the  house. 

"Whew,"  he  sputtered,  as  he  waited  a  moment 
for  the  automobile  to  disappear,  "this  Washington 
weather  is  the  worst  in  the  world.  They  tell  us 
that  they  have  mild  winters !  Ugh !"  And  he 
stamped  the  wet  snow  from  his  well-shaped  boots, 
turned  to  a  small  side  entrance  in  the  wall,  and 
pressed  a  tiny  button.  The  door  opened  and  he 
passed  in. 

"This  wa)7,"  said  an  apologetic  voice  in  guarded 
tones.  One  might  have  thought  that  the  speaker 

332 


A    BRACE    OF   INTERVIEWS 

deemed  himself  responsible  for  the  atrocious 
weather. 

As  the  two  entered  the  house,  the  one  who  had 
played  sentinel  at  the  gate  said  in  a  whisper: 

"It  is  all  right  now.  Count.  We  shall  meet  no 
one." 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Haven,"  replied  the  other, 
throwing  aside  his  dripping  hat  and  coat.  "We 
cannot  be  too  careful — for  Mr.  Norton's  sake." 

"He  is  waiting  for  you.  Beg  pardon,  but  you 
are  going  the  wrong  way.  Follow  me,  please." 

In  the  library  they  found  John  Norton  awaiting 
them,  pacing  restlessly  to  and  fro,  and  just  in  the 
act  of  consulting  his  watch.  He  greeted  Sand- 
Strom  with  a  relief  that  was  heightened  by  Haven's 
assertion  that  no  one  had  seen  him  enter. 

"You  evidently  received  my  wire,"  said  the 
Count,  when  the  social  amenities  had  been  briefly 
disposed  of. 

"Yes— Mr.  Haven." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Will  you  kindly  step  into  the  next  room,  and 
see  that  we  are  not  interrupted?  I  am  forced  to 
take  every  precaution,"  he  explained,  as  Haven 
retired  as  gingerly  as  though  he  were  party  to 
some  dark  and  terrible  plot. 

"Well,  it  wouldn't  do  for  the  world  to  know  of 
my  visit  here,"  admitted  the  Count.  "Yet,  after 
all,  it  is  only  simple  business."  He  lit  a  cigarette 
and  blew  the  smoke  through  his  nostrils  appre 
ciatively. 

"It's  not  that,"  replied  Norton  quickly.  "I  fear 
nothing  open,  but  of  late  I  have  been  receiving 
threatening  letters.  Some  of  them  have  been  left 
in  this  room,  and  no  one  could  be  found  to  ac- 

333 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT. 

knowledge  their  delivery.    One  was  found  fixed  to 
this  desk  with  a  bowie — see  the  mark  there?" 

Sandstrom's  eye  followed  the  direction  of  a 
trembling  finger  and  detected  in  the  polished  rose 
wood  a  slit  that  made  him  give  a  little  shiver.  Yet 
stranger  still  were  the  signs  of  shaken  nerves  on 
the  part  of  John  Norton,  the  man  he  had  learned 
to  consider  as  absolutely  made  of  iron.  He  fell  to 
wondering  what  else  had  happened  since  he  had 
seen  him  last. 

"It's  a  terrible  thing,  Sandstrom,  to  have  ene 
mies  you  cannot  see.  I'd  fight  without  fear  so 
long  as  my  enemy  met  me  face  to  face.  But  this 
intangibility,  these  threats  of  nameless  things"- 
he  laughed  in  a  strained  way — "are  'boogerish,'  as 
we  used  to  say  when  we  were  boys.  And,  do  you 
know,  some  of  the  letters  have  hinted  that  you  are 
considered  a  spy  here  against  the  interests  of  Eng 
land  and  Russia.  I  hear  that  the  legations,  even. 
are  whispering  it." 

The  Count  smiled  derisively. 

"Let  them  say  what  they  please,"  he  rejoined 
coolly.  "I  am  serving  my  country ;  that  is  enough 
for  me." 

Norton  appeared  to  regain  his  old  impassiveness 
as  he  noted  Sandstrom's  unruffled  air. 

"Let's  proceed  to  business,"  he  said  decisively, 
and  the  half-hour's  conversation  that  followed  ap 
peared  eminently  satisfactory  to  both. 

"In  what  shape  is  the  money?"  Norton  asked  at 
length. 

"In  drafts  on  London,  payable  to  bearer.  I 
knew  that  would  be  safer  for  you." 

"Good." 

The  Count  produced  a  pocketbook,  and  drew 
334 


A    BRACE    OF    INTERVIEWS 

from  it  a  large  envelope  of  blue  paper,  which  he 
handed  to  Norton  politely,  remarking : 

"You  will  find  it  correct,  I  think  —  300,000 
pounds." 

The  Senator  verified  the  amount  carefully,  and 
put  the  packet  away  near  his  breast. 

"Quite  correct,"  he  said.  He  felt  all  at  once  as 
if  he  had  received  the  invisible  protection  of  some 
supernatural  power.  This  substantial  amount  of 
money  covering  his  heart  seemed  at  once  a  de 
fiance  and  an  armor.  For  the  first  time  in  many 
days  he  lit  a  cigar,  and  sank  back  into  his  chair 
with  more  of  comfort  than  he  had  experienced  for 
a  long  time. 

"And  now  about  the  supplies,"  began  Sand- 
strom,  anxious  to  know  that  the  compact  was  in 
good  order  on  both  sides ;  he  had  felt  a  bit  of  un 
easiness  at  the  first  sight  of  Norton  that  night. 
"Can  we  be  assured  that  they  will  not  fail?" 

"Most  assuredly.  The  market  is  quite  under 
control." 

"But  Congress?    My  government  has  heard — " 

"That  it  would  pass  a  law  forbidding  the  expor 
tation  of  food-stuffs,  I  suppose?  Mere  political 
buncombe.  Men  in  this  country  sell  to  the  high 
est  bidder." 

"But  the  papers  say,"  persisted  the  German, 
"that  a  poll  of  the  House  presages  the  passage  of 
the  bill." 

Norton  sneered  quite  in  his  old-time  manner. 

"Newspaper  polls  and  straw  votes  are  absolutely 
worthless,  except  to  the  other  side.  And  even  if 
the  House  passes  such  a  bill,  the  Senate  will  not. 
I  give  you  my  word  on  that." 

335 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Quite  sufficient,  Mr.  Norton,"  said  Sandstrom, 
bowing.  "But  supposing — " 

"I  gave  you  my  word  once ;  I  have  kept  it — at 
no  little  cost  I  assure  you." 

"Cost?    Why,  my  government — " 

"Your  government  is  very  rich  and  powerful," 
replied  the  Senator  with  a  grim  smile,  "but  it  can 
not  pay  this  particular  kind  of  cost — the  expendi 
ture  of  a  man's  peace  of  mind." 

"But  you  are  not  known,"  observed  Sandstrom, 
with  a  growing  conviction  that  not  even  he  had 
penetrated  the  complexities  of  this  strange  char 
acter,  nor  ever  would.  The  man  who  could  crush 
with  a  ruthless  hand  innocent  and  guilty  alike 
prating  of  "peace  of  mind,"  like  a  weakling  with  a 
conscience!  It  was  too  much  for  his  Teutonic 
philosophy,  and  he  gave  up  the  attempt  at  analysis. 

"No,  I  am  not  known,"  Norton  was  saying, 
"but  I  am  suspected,  and  suspicion  is  often  more 
damning  than  certainty.  Unfortunately  for  the 
country,  last  summer's  floods  ruined  nearly  half 
of  our  crops,  as  you  know,  and  injured  much  of 
the  remainder.  Nature,  as  usual,  goes  blameless 
with  the  people,  and  we  of  capital,  or,  at  least,  we 
who  make  the  laws,  have  to  shoulder  the  responsi 
bility." 

"I  regret  the — "  began  the  Count,  but  scarcely 
knew  his  next  word.  Norton  saved  him  from 
embarrassment. 

"It  is  not  necessary,  Count.  It  is  a  business 
deal;  its  results  are  unpreventable.  The  people 
have  to  take  the  bitter  and  the  sweet,  like  the  rest 
of  us.  But  you  are  confident  that  the  war  will 
soon  end?" 

336 


A    BRACE    OF   INTERVIEWS 

"Quite.  Long  wars  in  these  days  of  great  arma 
ments  are  too  expensive.'' 

''I  hope  so,  I  hope  so,"  muttered  Norton  with  a 
return  of  his  depressed  air.  "It  is  a  great  strain, 
very  great,  indeed." 

When  Sandstrom  reached  the  snowy  air  again, 
he  threw  away  his  cigarette  with  an  impatient  ges 
ture  and  twisted  his  great  moustachios  vigorously. 
Nor  did  the  companionship  of  Haven,  who  had 
been  ordered  to  return  to  New  York  that  night, 
and  was  on  his  way  to  his  hotel  to  prepare  for  the 
journey,  give  him  any  especial  comfort.  He  had 
seen  a  weak  spot  in  the  armor  of  a  man  he  had 
deemed  impregnable,  and  he  feared  lest  the  defect 
should  grow  until  others,  too,  could  perceive  the 

flaw. 

*       *       *       * 

The  National  Hotel,  a  magnificent  new  struc 
ture  much  affected  by  politicians,  if  not  statesmen, 
was  Mazing  with  light  and  resounding  with  the 
babel  of  men  in  every  form  of  conversation,  from 
the  exchange  of  risque  stories  to  the  violence  of 
party  argument.  The  storm  had  driven  in  the 
floating  population,  who  regarded  the  place  as  a 
sort  of  political  barometer,  while  the  regular  habi 
tues  remained  in  the  lobbies,  the  barrooms  and  the 
billiard  halls,  not  displeased  to  see  the  tide  of  noisy 
life  that  eddied  in  and  about  them  and  created 
an  activity  that  was  inspiring,  and  in  some  cases, 
valuable. 

In  a  cheerful  room  somewhat  apart  from  the 
clatter,  three  men  stood  talking  earnestly.  Craig, 
Ford  and  Langmaid  had  not  met  since  Philip's 
coming  to  Washington,  and  the  two  visitors,  or 
Ford,  at  least,  had  evidently  been  giving  vent  to 

33?' 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

utterances  that  were  not  wholly  making  for  peace. 
The  tall,  spare  Ford  was  excited,  and  excitement 
always  made  of  him  an  impressive  figure.  Further 
more,  he  now  dressed  with  much  care  in  minis 
terial  black,  and  the  strong-jawed,  sallow  face,  the 
dark,  cavernous  eyes  and  the  long,  black  hair  sur 
mounted  by  a  wide-brimmed  soft  hat  made  him  a 
man  likely  to  attract  attention  anywhere.  Lang- 
maid  had  changed  little,  but  even  he  seemed  to 
have  acquired  a  pessimism  which  he  had  formerly 
kept  pretty  well  in  subjection.  His  shifty  little 
eyes  were  as  nearly  fixed  on  Philip  as  he  could  fix 
them  on  anybody,  while  Ford  was  saying  some 
thing  that  he  had  feared  would  bring  on  an  ex 
plosion. 

"See  here,  Ford,  you  know  as  well  as  any  man 
living  what  I  have  done  for  the  cause  you  have  so 
often  misrepresented,"  said  the  new  secretary  of 
industry  warmly.  "I  don't  doubt  your  honesty  of 
purpose,  but  your  mistake  is  just  as  great.  This 
congress  of  men  assembled  through  the  machinery 
of  the  organization  which  T  inspired  and  began — " 

"And  then  dropped,"  broke  in  Ford  sullenly. 

"Which  I  inspired  and  began,  and  which  could 
not  have  existed  but  for  me — this  congress  can  do 
great  good,  but  it  can  do  greater  harm." 

"I  don't  admit  the  harm." 

"That  remains  to  be  seen,  Ford.  Its  presence 
in  the  city  at  a  time  when  Congress  will  be  con 
sidering  measures  of  relief — ' 

The  other  laughed  bitterly. 

"That's  just  it — always  'considering,'  never 
doing." 

"Its  assembling  here,  I  say,  may  be  regarded  as 
a  threat," 

338 


A    BRACE    OF   INTERVIEWS 

"What  if  it  is?"  muttered  Ford  under  his 
breath.  As  an  avowed  man  of  action,  he  could  see 
no  harm  in  that,  either. 

"And  if  disorder  should  come,  the  cause  of  the 
rights  of  the  common  people  will  receive  a  serious 
blow." 

"But  Philip,"  interposed  Langmaid,  with  con 
ciliatory  mildness,  "the  delegates  are  good  men." 

"But  good  men  smarting  under  wrongs.  If 
they  are  discreet  and  rightfully  led,  they  will  do 
no  harm,  but  I  am  honestly  afraid  of  the  outcome." 

"If  you  would  only  preside,"  suggested  Lang- 
maid,  with  genuine  appeal  in  his  voice.  He  was 
loyal  to  his  chief,  as  he  always  called  him,  yet  he 
sincerely  believed  that  the  times  were  ripe  for  the 
self-assertion  of  the  people. 

"I  cannot,"  replied  Craig.  "It  is  not  even  wise 
that  I  address  the  gathering,  in  view  of  my  official 
position  as  their  representative.  But  I  have  de 
cided  that  T  will  speak  if" — he  looked  meaningly 
at  Ford — "if  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  disposition 
to  create  disorder  or  make  threats  against  the  gov 
ernment.  You  may  say  this  to  the  committee." 

Ford's  mind  worked  rapidly.  He  felt  that  it 
would  be  no  credit  to  himself  should  he  return  to 
New  York  and  say  that  he  could  neither  persuade 
nor  force  the  secretary  to  speak  before  the  Peo 
ple's  Congress.  And  he  knew  that  he  could  not 
accomplish  his  mission  unless  he  disavowed  any 
desire  to  make  trouble.  He  spoke  with  all  mild 
ness. 

"I'm  sure,  Philip,  I'm  for  nothing  except  what's 
needed.  I  wouldn't  have  urged  this  congress  if — 
if—" 

"Why  don't  you  out  with  it?     If  1  had  done 
339 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

what  you  expected  me  to  do  when  I  was  put  at 
the  head  of  the  department  of  industry!" 

"Well,  that's  about  it,"  replied  Ford  grimly.  He 
could  not  resist  showing  their  old-time  leader  how 
he  had  disappointed  the  group  he  represented, 
even  though  it  might  mean  personal  offence.  But 
Craig  held  his  temper  in  leash. 

"I  have  done  all  I  could,"  he  said.  "But  I  be 
lieve — and  you  may  say  this,  too,  in  New  York — 
that  relief  will  soon  be  forthcoming.  President 
Rurlingame  has  given  me  reason  for  confidence. 
Now  good-night,  gentlemen.  It  is  late,  and  I  have 
much  to  do."  And  he  pointed  to  a  table  upon 
which  was  a  great  pile  of  letters  and  papers  await- 
ine  attention. 

^Good-night,  Philip,"  said  Ford.  "I'll  say  to 
the  committee  that  you'll  talk  to  the  congress, 
then?" 

"On  the  conditions  I  named,  yes." 

"Good-night.  Mr.  Craig,"  said  Langmaid. 
"'You'll  find  the  delegates  a  right  good  set  of 
men." 

"I  don't  doubt  it,  Joseph.  It  all  depends  on  the 
leaders.  See  to  it  that  they  know  how  to  lead. 
Good-night." 


340 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 
ANDREW  HAVEN'S  EVENING  CALL. 

FORD  and  Langmaid  passed  into  the  next 
room  to  pay  their  parting  respects  to  Angus 
Craig,  who  had  been  with  his  son  since  the 
latter's  coming  to  Washington.  The  old  man  was 
now  intensely  proud  of  Philip,  with  that  added 
comfortable  feeling  that  to  the  father's  character 
was  due  some  of  the  son's  glory.  He  was  a  fiery 
partisan,  naturally,  and  it  would  have  fared  rather 
badly  with  Ford  had  he  dared  to  say  to  him  the 
things  he  had  not  hesitated  to  fling  in  Philip's 
teeth. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Luke  had  been  right  to  the 
extent  that  he  represented  the  opinion  of  the  con 
stituency  that  had  sent  him  to  Washington.  Ever 
since  the  creation  of  the  Department  of  Industry, 
the  appointment  of  Craig  to  the  office  and  his 
prompt  confirmation  by  the  Senate,  it  had  been 
hopefully  believed  by  those  who  ruled  the  United 
Men  of  America  that  sweeping  reforms  would  im 
mediately  be  made.  They  expected  their  strong 
and  brilliant  leader  to  buckle  on  the  armor  of 
righteousness  at  once,  and  proceed  to  slay  the 
dragon  of  social  injustice  without  more  ado. 
When  the  combat  did  not  take  place,  they  began 
to  have  serious  misgivings  that  the  "great  triumph 
of  American  labor"  which  was  proclaimed  with 

341 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

such  joy  at  first,  was  scarcely  more  than  a  victory 
on  paper. 

However,  neither  Ford  nor  his  companion  said 
anything  of  the  sort  to  Angus.  This  was  to  be  a 
purely  social  occasion,  an  hours  renewal  of  ties 
which  still  held  them  in  memory,  if  not  in  practice. 

"Weel,  an'  how  d'ye  fine  Philip?"  asked  the  old 
man  cheerily.  "In  a  gude  way,  I  ken,  for  he's  a' 
right  the  noo.  It's  a  fine  thing  for  the  people  that 
they  hae  such  a  mon  in  the  councils  o'  the  great. 
Eh?" 

"We  hope  so.  Angus,  surely,"  replied  Lang- 
maid,  "hut  time'll  tell  better  than  we.  We  called 
in  to  bid  you  good-bye,  for  we're  going  back  to 
New  York  at  midnight." 

"The  nicht?"  said  Angus  with  surprise.  "Mon, 
but  ye're  tumble  fellows  for  the  travel.  Weel, 
weel;  an'  ye  expect  tae  sleep  on  those  rackettin' 
cars?" 

"We'll  sleep  all  right,"  replied  Ford,  "for  we've 
done  enough  to-day  to  put  us  to  rest  in  a  boiler 
factory.  But,"  he  added  judiciously,  "perhaps  it 
ivonhl  be  better  it  we  had  some  sort  of  a  night-cap. 
Suppose  we  all  go  down  to  the. bar  and  have  a 
parting  smile." 

"Verra  weel,  for  ankl  times'  sake  I'll  gae  wi' 
ye,"  assented  Angus,  not  ill-pleased  at  the  pros 
pect  of  a  glass  of  excellent  Scotch,  well  brewed 
and  comfortably  hot. 

On  his  way  back  to  his  room,  after  parting  with 
his  friends,  he  came  fairly  upon  Andrew  Haven  in 
the.  corridor. 

The  very  sight  of  this  smirking,  deprecatory 
little  man  roused  every  slumbering  passion  in  the 
Scotchman's  heart.  In  the  one  instant  that  he 

342 


ANDREW  HAT/EN'S  EVENING   CALL 

faced  him  all  the  various  acts  of  enmity  from 
which  he  had  suffered  trooped  past  in  his  mind. 
It  was  Haven  who  had  repaid  loyalty  with 
treachery  in  the  watch-factory  episode  years  be 
fore  ;  it  was  he  who  had  attempted  to  thrust  him 
from  his  home ;  it  was  he  who,  he  believed,  had 
.cet  the  tide  of  suspicion  against  him  as  a  thief  in 
the  matter  of  the  Onometer  certificates;  it  was  he 
who  had  ever  been  his  evil  genius,  the  one  enemy 
upon  whom  he  could  lay  his  finger  with  certainty. 
And  now  the  man  was  before  him,  and  with  him 
the  opportunity  to  tell  him  what  a  villain  and  a  cur 
he  believed  him  to  be.  He  was  delighted  beyond 
measure,  and  he  smiled  sarcastically  as  he  said 
with  exaggerated  courtesy: 

"Ah,  Maister  Haven;  I'm  verra  glad  tae  see 
you,  sir." 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  Craig?"  replied  the  other,  not 
at  all  at  ease,  though  assuming  an  air  of  nonchal 
ance.  "I — T  beg  pardon.  I  didn't  quite  recall  you 
at  first.  You  have — 

"Changed,  is  it,  Maister  Haven?  Maybe,  may 
be.  But  just  step  inside,  an'  ye'll  see  me  better  in 
the  licht." 

"Why,  I — I — "  stammered  the  other,  "well,  you 
must  excuse  me,  but  I — " 

"Oh,  coom  in,  coom  in.  I'll  nae  detain  ye 
tang." 

"Well,  if  you  insist,"  murmured  Haven.  He 
wondered  what  the  man  wanted  with  him  at  such 
a  place  and  hour.  He  felt  still  more  uneasy  and 
confused  when  Angus  calmly  locked  the  door  and 
put  the  key  in  his  pocket. 

"I  really — it  may  be  curiosity,  merely,"  he  be- 

343 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

gan,  "but  I  really  would  like  to  know  why  you 
locked  the  door." 

"Oh,  wad  ye,  Maister  Haven,"  said  Angus  con 
temptuously.  "Ye  wad,  eh?  Weel,  I'll  tell  ye — 
tae  keep  ye  in." 

"To  keep  me  in?"  blustered  Haven.  "This  is  a 
scandal,  sir,  nothing  less." 

"Not  the  fairst  ye  hae  been  in,  I  ken." 

"Open  the  door,  sir." 

"Ye  seem  tae  be  in  a  sair  hurry,  Maister  Haven. 
Ye're  not  responsive  tae  my  hospitality,  mon.  It 
should  na  be  thus  wi'  auld  friens.  But  I'll  tell  ye, 
sir,  that  I'll  open  the  door  when  I'm  through  wi' 
ye,  an'  not  before.  Sit  down.  Na?  Weel,  stand 
up,  then,  but  listen.  Ye'er  path  and  mine  hae 
crossed  often  in  life,  by  nane  o'  my  seekin'.  Ye 
dismissed  me  from  ye'er  employ — " 

"The  company — not  I.  A  vote  of  the  com 
pany." 

"We'll  pass  that  the  noo.  Ye  tried  tae  drive  me 
frae  my  house;  we'll  pass  that,  too.  But  why  did 
ye  accuse  me,  an  honest  mon,  o'  the  theft  o'  ye'er 
stock  certeeficates?" 

"Why,  I— I  didn't." 

"Yes,  ye  did.  Ye  said  nae  ane  had  touched 
them  but  yersel',  the  superintendent  in  your  pres 
ence,  an'  me." 

"Well,  that  was  the  truth,  wasn't  it?"  asked 
Haven,  with  a  feeble  little  tone  of  triumph.  Craig's 
eyes  flashed  fire,  and  his  hands  clenched  menac 
ingly. 

"Yes,  it  7vas  the  truth,"  he  shouted,  "but  when 
you  said  the  ccrteencates  were  taken  from  that 
package  before  I  handed  it  tae  you,  ye  lied !" 

"Mr.  Craig,  Mr.  Craig,  you—-" 

344 


ANDREW  HAVEN'S  EVENING   CALL 

"Ye  needn't  'Maister'  me.  Plain  'Craig'  is  gude 
enouch.  Tell  the  truth  noo,  if  ye  never  did  be 
fore." 

"I  tell  you,  as  I  said  then,  that  the  certificates 
were  sold." 

"But  who  sauld  'em?'' 

"How  can  T  tell?" 

''They  were  signed,"  said  Angus  scornfully. 

"Yes;  they  couldn't  have  been  sold  otherwise." 

"By  Armstrong  as  president,  an'  you  as  treas 
urer?" 

"Yes,  I  was  treasurer  then."  A  look  of  alarm 
came  into  the  mean  little  eyes  as  Angus  went  to  a 
desk,  fumbled  in  a  drawer  and  brought  out  a  crisp, 
folded  paper.  It  was  a  stock  certificate. 

"This,"  said  the  old  man,  "is  one  of  the  certeefi- 
cates  that  were  intended  tae  be  cancelled,  an'  which 
were  stolen,  isn't  it?"  Haven  took  it  gingerly  and 
peered  at  it  closely  through  his  great,  round  spec 
tacles. 

"Yes,  the  error  in  the  second  line  is  here.  How 
do  you  happen  to  have  it?" 

"Eh,  mon?  I  bought  it  frae  its  owner  as  evi 
dence  years  ago.  An'  that  is  ye'er  seegnature?" 

"Undoubtedly." 

"Then  how  did  it  happen,  Maister  Andrew 
Haven,  that  ye'er  seegnature  was  put  on  it  after  it 
had  left  my  hands?" 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Ye  ken  weel  enouch  what  I  mean.  When  the 
certeeficates  came  tae  me  they  were  signed  by  the 
president  only.  When  they  were  sauld  they  bore 
ye'er  seegnature." 

"Nonsense,"  returned  Haven  with  more  spirit 
than  he  had  yet  exhibited.  He  began  to  feel  that 

345 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

his  position  was  improving.    "Nonsense;  I  signed 
all  three.    This  was  number  two." 

"Yes — it  is  number  twa.  Twa  and  three  were 
nae  signed  by  you,  but  number  ane  was." 

"Absurd,"  sneered  the  other.  ''Now,  if  you 
have  finished  your  examination,  I'll  go."  And  he 
rose  from  his  chair  to  take  his  hat  from  the  table. 

Angus  sprang  at  him  with  the  fury  and  strength 
of  a  maddened  animal,  seized  him  by  the  throat 
and  forced  him  squirming  and  sputtering  into  his 
chair. 

"Ye'll  not  gae,  Maister  Haven,"  he  thundered, 
still  holding  the  other's  neck  in  his  muscular  grip, 
"till  I  wring  the  truth  frae  ye'er  fause  heart.  I  tell 
ye,  ye  signed  that  certeeficate  after  it  left  my 
hands.  Look,"  and  he  relaxed  his  hold,  and 
pointed  to  the  certificate  which  he  held  before 
Haven's  face.  "When  I  made  the  change  in  the 
plate  it  rested  on  the  certeeficate.  In  changing 
the  bottom  border  my  graver  slipped,  an'  made  a 
deep  cut  in  the  certeeficate.  This  is  the  ane — look 
here.  You  signed  ower  it,  and  the  ink  ran  in  the 
path  my  tool  had  cut.  The  magnifying  glass 
don't  lie  as  you  do." 

Trapped,  baffled,  at  bay,  Haven  had  no  more 
defense  to  make,  except  the  one  recourse  of  de 
fiance.  He  laughed  insultingly. 

"Well,  what  if  I  did?  'You  can't  prove  it. 
Who'd  believe  you  ?" 

"Why  did  ye  do  this?"  demanded  Angus, 
sternly. 

"Because,"  replied  the  other,  furious  with  an 
anger  that  could  only  vent  itself  in  hostile  words, 
"because  I  hated  you,  or,  rather,  your  son,  which 
is  the  same  thing.  I'll  crush  him  yet." 

346 


ANDREW  HAVEN'S  EVENING   CALL 

"Crush  him?"  jeered  the  old  man  in  the  full 
pride  of  a  great  possession.  ''He  is  a  member  of 
the  cabinet!" 

"Cabinet !"  sneered  the  other.  "A  stick  of  wood 
put  under  lock  and  key  to  keep  people  from 
stumbling  over  it — that's  your  precious  son." 

"Dinna  ye  believe  it.  He'll  win  for  the  people 
yet." 

Haven  felt  sure  of  his  ground  now.  He  had 
heard  and  seen  enough  in  his  capacity  of  syco 
phant  to  assure  him  how  matters  stood  in  political 
circles.  If  he  could  make  this  terrible  old  man 
wince,  he  would  do  it  with  the  greatest  delight  in 
the  world.  "Win!"  he  echoed.  "They'll  be 
laughing  at  him  as  a  miserable  failure  in  a  month 
or  two.  John  Norton  will  see  to  that." 

"Norton?  Imph,"  snorted  Angus  derisively. 
What  was  Norton  against  his  son  now? 

"It's  Norton  who's  doing  it  all,"  continued 
Haven.  "He  is  the  man  who  is  manipulating  the 
'foodstuffs'  your  son  preaches  about.  He  controls 
the  Senate,  and  when  he  says  so,  Philip  Craig  will 
go!" 

"Where  to,  Mr.  Haven?"  asked  a  new  voice,  as 
Philip  pushed  open  a  door  behind  the  speakers. 
"There  are  plenty  of  places,  to  be  sure,  but  don't 
you  think  Mr.  Norton  might  resent  your  violation 
of  his  confidence?" 

For  the  first  time  it  flashed  over  Haven  that  he 
had  made  a  consummate  fool  of  himself,  and  he 
could  have  bitten  his  tongue  out  for  his  indiscre 
tion.  His  ruddy  face  grew  sallow,  and  his  lips 
twitched  like  those  of  a  man  in  pain. 

"Ye've  heard,  Philip?"  asked  his  father. 

"Everything." 

347 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"So  you  descend  to  eavesdropping,  then?"  said 
Haven,  feebly. 

"Quite  as  respectable,  especially  when  I 
couldn't  help  hearing,  as  trying  to  force  guilt  on 
an  innocent  man." 

Haven  rose  unsteadily  and  walked  toward  the 
door. 

"I  demand  to  be  released  from  this  room,"  he 
said,  with  as  much  dignity  as  he  could  muster. 
The  others  were  totally  unmoved. 

"In  a  moment,  Mr.  Haven,"  said  Philip.  He 
sat  at  a  table  and  hastily  wrote  something  on  a 
heavy  sheet  of  paper.  "You  may  go  after  you 
have  signed  this  statement  that  Angus  Craig  was 
not  responsible  for  the  disappearance  of  the  certi 
ficates  that  you — sold  yourself." 

"I  didn't  sell  them ;  they  were  stolen — " 

"After  you  had  signed  them  ?  How  considerate 
you  were  of  the  thief!" 

Haven  quivered  with  rage,  and  insanely  rattled 
the  handle  of  the  door  as  if  he  expected  anger  to 
defeat  locksmiths,  or  some  servant  to  come  to  his 
aid.  But  nothing  happened  except  the  continu 
ance  of  Philip's  cold  and  pitiless  words  of  sen 
tence. 

"This  statement,  you  will  observe,  is  addressed 
to  the  President  of  the  Metropolitan  Bank  Note 
Engraving  Company.  It  simply  says  that  you 
know  the  identity  of  the  thief  and  regret  your 
error  in  regard  to  my  father.  Sign  it." 

"I — 1  will  have  the —  "  stammered  Haven,  with 
one  last  implied  threat  of  despair. 

"Sign  it.  or  I  shall  send  for  the  police  and  prefer 
charges  against  you.  You  know  what  they  will 
be." 

348 


ANDREW  HAVEN'S  EVENING   CALL 

The  little  man  tottered  to  the  desk,  seized  a  pen, 
and  dashed  it  across  the  foot  of  the  paper.  Then 
he  rose  without  a  word  and  went  to  the  door, 
which  Angus  had  unlocked  and  at  which  he  stood 
with  elaborate  courtesy. 

"Gude  evening,  Maister  Haven,"  he  said,  bow 
ing.  <;A  verra  delightful  and  profitable  call  ye  hae 
made  us,  tae  be  sure.  Some  time  again — "  But 
his  words  were  lost  on  the  retreating  figure  that 
trotted  down  the  corridor  with  more  haste  than  it 
had  known  since  boyhood. 

Angus  turned  to  his  son  with  a  glorified  smile  of 
love,  of  pride  and  of  perfect  confidence,  and 
grasped  his  hand  with  tender  warmth. 

"Aye,  lad."  he  said  with  moist  eyes.  "For  the 
warrk  o'  this  nicht  I — I  thank  ye.  Thegither  we'll 
defy  a'  the  power  o'  the  plutocrats,  an'  great'll  be 
the  victory." 

But  Philip  sighed,  and  went  back  to  his  desk. 


349 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

MANOEUVRES  IN   FORCE. 

IT  was  the  clear  and  rosy  dawn  of  a  morning  in 
mid-April  over  the  city  of  Washington.  A 
white  mist  stole  up  from  its  bed  on  the  Poto 
mac,  wavered  gently  in  spiral  wreaths  about  the 
higher  banks,  and  then  melted  away  in  the  pink 
glow  that  suffused  the  warmer  air.  Around  the 
great  Coliseum  chosen  by  the  United  Men  of 
America  for  the  theatre  of  their  strange  Congress, 
silence  reigned,  scarcely  broken  by  the  twitter  of 
the  half-awakened  birds  that  made  their  nest  under 
its  protecting  eaves.  No  sentinel  paced  before  its 
broad,  low  entrance ;  no  human  being  had  guarded 
it  during  the  night.  There  it  stood  in  its  simple 
strength,  a  silent  factor,  no  man  knew  how  potent, 
for  good  or  ill. 

As  the  sun  touched  the  roof  of  the  long 
structure  with  momentary  gold,  the  thin  song  of  a 
bugle  was  wafted  from  the  green  heights  across 
the  murky  river.  A  lone  policeman  who  had  just 
turned  a  corner  rubbed  his  sleepy  eyes  at  what  he 
saw.  A  great,  white  tented  city  had  sprung  up 
during  the  night,  and  in  front  of  it  frowned  a  long 
line  of  machine  guns,  trained,  it  would  seem,  on 
the  very  spot  he  occupied.  After  a  little  the  of 
ficer  remembered  that  the  Army  of  the  East  had 
been  ordered  to  concentrate  at  the  capital  to  take 
part  in  the  great  national  celebration  of  the  Nine- 

350 


MANOEUVRES   IN  FORCE 

teenth  of  April,  during  which  a  colossal  statue  of 
the  Minute  Man  was  to  be  unveiled  by  the  Presi 
dent.  He  smiled  sarcastically  as  his  glance  shifted 
from  the  bristling  rows  of  guns  to  the  silent  white 
Coliseum ;  then  he  walked  slowly  on  over  his  beat. 

Sudden  life  sprang  into  the  tented  field  across 
the  way.  Figures  emerged  from  the  little  canvas 
houses  like  rabbits  from  a  warren,  and  ran  about 
in  the  orderly  haste  of  a  camp.  Thin  lines  of 
smoke  mounted  into  the  still  air  like  shafts  of 
fleecy  cotton  suspended  by  some  invisible  powrer. 
The  polished  utensils  of  the  open-air  kitchen 
caught  the  light  of  the  sun  and  sent  its  glittering 
rays  flashing  abroad.  The  men  in  blouses  and 
slouch  hats  could  be  seen  lined  up  in  their  com 
pany  streets  for  roll-call,  and  then  marching  to  the 
great  ovens  with  their  plates  and  mugs,  whence 
they  returned  to  discuss  breakfast,  squatting  be 
fore  their  tents  in  luxurious  disorder. 

Before  the  great  city  was  fairly  astir  the  troops 
answered  to  the  surgeon's  call,  little  knots  of  men 
appearing  at  the  end  of  company  streets  to  give 
the  doctors  a  description  of  their  real  or  fancied 
ailments.  Soon  after,  the  brilliant  strains  of  mili 
tary  bands  rose  on  the  air  for  guard  mount,  and 
the  swift  evolutions,  so  mysterious  and  meaning 
less  to  the  citizenry,  were  in  full  swing.  By  this 
time  the  people  of  Washington  had  waked  to  the 
presence  of  the  great  army  opposite,  and  hundreds 
of  early  sightseers  thronged  the  river  streets  and 
watched  each  movement  on  the  heights  with 
greedy  eyes.  For  years  the  capital  had  seen  no 
army  mobilization,  and  the  fascination  of  the  sol 
diery  was  more  powerful  for  its  novelty. 

Around  the  Coliseum  knots  of  men  began  to 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

collect  for  the  first  session  of  the  People's  Con 
gress  to  which  they  were  delegates.  Earnest, 
sturdy  fellows  they  seemed  to  be  for  the  most 
part,  many  bearing  the  marks  of  toil  peculiar  to 
their  respective  callings.  Here  and  there  were 
faces  telling  of  intellectuality  and  high  spiritual 
purposes;  again  were  the  features  that  spoke  of 
violent  and  disorderly  souls,  but  both  were  enor 
mously  outnumbered  by  the  men  of  ordinary  cal 
ibre  and  an  honest  desire  to  get  simple  justice  by 
simple  means.  But  the  presence  of  the  military 
across  the  Potomac  embittered  them  all,  and  they 
answered  the  frown  of  each  gun  by  frowns  of  ten 
fold  intensity. 

The  esplanade  before  the  Coliseum  filled  rap 
idly;  all  sections  might  be  seen  in  representation, 
from  the  trig  mechanic  of  the  north  to  the  lank 
and  bony  man  of  the  far  south-west.  Many  made 
their  way  into  the  building,  but  the  great  majority 
lingered  outside,  their  eyes  fixed  with  indignant 
curiosity  on  the  show  of  force  over  against  them. 

"Hullo,  Fax,"  cried  a  shock-headed  man  who 
looked  like  a  boy  in  arrested  development,  "I  sup 
posed  I'd  find  you  here.  The  last  time  I  saw  you 
was  at  the  St.  Louis  convention,  wasn't  it?"  The 
two  shook  hands  warmly. 

"Yes,"  replied  the  studious  appearing  little  in 
dividual  addressed,  "but  political  conventions  long 
ago  ceased  to  interest  me,  Howard." 

"All  promises  and  we-view-with-alarms,  and  no 
deeds,  eh?  Let's  see,  you  belong  here  in  Wash 
ington  now,  don't  you?  Delegate?" 

The  other  nodded. 

"Nice  reception  Washington  gives  us,"  growled 
Howard,  pointing  to  the  muzzles  of  the  machine 

352 


MANOEUVRES   IN  FORCE 

guns  that  seemed  to  be  peering  with  brazen  cur 
iosity  at  the  doings  about  the  building. 

"The  soldiers?"  said  the  other  deprecatingly. 
"Well,  it  does  look  queer,(  but  the  celebration  of 
the  anniversary  of  Lexington  and  Concord  was 
determined  upon  long  before  the  date  fixed  for  the 
People's  Congress,  you  know." 

"Are  you  sure  of  that,  friend?" 

The  new  voice  was  nasal  and  incisive,  and  its 
owner  a  tall,  spare  man  carefully  dressed  in  minis 
terial  black.  A  crowd  at  once  encircled  the  group, 
for  I /..ike  Ford  was  known  to  hundreds  by  sight 
and  to  practically  every  delegate  by  reputation. 
As  the  leader  of  the  party  of  action  he  was  enthu 
siastically  revered  and  followed. 

"I  thought  so,"  replied  little  Fax  pacifically. 

"Well,  the  fact  is,"  said  Ford  oratorically,  "that 
the  date  was  known — to  certain  people  here  in 
Washington — as  far  back  as  January." 

"Oho,"  exclaimed  Howard,  "that's  it,  is  it?" 
There  could  be  no  questioning  the  accuracy  of 
Luke  Ford's  assertions,  he  felt. 

"And,  anyway,"  continued  the  tall  oracle,  "it 
wasn't  necessary  to  mobilize  the  entire  army  east 
of  the  Rockies  to  celebrate  a  battle." 

"Perhaps  they  expect  one,"  spoke  up  a  man  in 
the  crowd,  and  his  neighbors  growled  approval. 

"They  say  Gen.  MacMalTon  opposed  the  mobili 
zation,"  ventured  Fax,  bound  to  speak  well  of 
somebody. 

"Sensible  man,"  replied  Ford,  "but  we  all  know 
he's  no  more  commander-in-chief  than  I  am — 
wears  more  gold  lace,  that's  all.  The  war  depart 
ment  runs  things." 

"And  a  tallow-chandler  runs  the  war  depart- 

353 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

nient,"  observed  Howard,  whereat  there  was  a 
general  laugh  of  desirion.  The  facts  were  patent. 
The  Hon.  Peleg  Chamberlain  had  derived  all  of 
his  military  experience  in  the  campaigns  of  his 
soap  factory,  where  he  had  amassed  so  much 
money  that  his  claims  for  a  cabinet  position  could 
not  be  overlooked. 

"Well,  the  soldiers  are  there,  and  we — are  here," 
said  Ford  significantly. 

"Yes,  we  are  here,"  piped  a  youthful  man  of 
that  class  who  delight  in  saying  irrelevant  things 
for  the  mere  sake  of  speaking.  "We  are  here,  but 
for  how  long?" 

"Until  our  work  is  done,  young  man,"  answered 
Ford  sternly,  and  the  questioner  subsided  meekly 
enough. 

"The  queerest  thing  about  it  is,"  said  Howard, 
"that  the  plans,  I'm  told,  include  military  man 
oeuvres  in  the  line  of  what  would  be  done  should 
the  capital  be  threatened  with  invasion." 

"As  if  Washington  could  be  invaded!"  ex 
claimed  Fax  scornfully. 

"Why  not?"  asked 'Ford.  "It's  been  done  be 
fore.  Who  knows — ?"  The  old  habit  asserted  its 
strength  once  more,  and  he  bit  a  huge  piece  from 
his  plug  of  tobacco  and  rolled  it  into  one  cheek 
with  great  appreciation. 

"At  any  rate,"  exclaimed  Howard  with  rising 
anger,  as  the  note  of  a  bugle  came  over  the  water, 
to  be  followed  by  some  manoeuvre  which  could 
not  be  made  out  clearly,  "at  any  rate  it's  a  devilish 
shame  that  this  could  not  have  been  avoided." 

"Cautious,  my  friend,"  observed  Ford,  quietly, 
"their  guns  are  pointed  this  way."  There  was  no 

354 


MANCEUVRES   IN  FORCE 

mirth  in  his  remark,  but  the  crowd  thought  other 
wise,  and  the  laugh  went  round. 

The  delegates,  who,  by  this  time  were  pouring 
into  the  Coliseum  in  ever-increasing  numbers, 
eager  for  the  new  excitement  of  the  day,  whatever 
that  might  turn  out  to  be,  were  men  of  prominence 
in  their  respective  homes,  and  for  the  most  part 
ready  to  do  their  duty  in  this  hour  of  stress;  yet 
to  most  of  them  the  trip  to  the  capital  took  on  the 
form  of  a  holiday's  diversion,  a  relief  from  toil,  a 
journey  into  the  world  so  few  of  them  had  seen 
before.  Active,  stalwart,  and  easily  impression 
able,  they  were  ready  to  be  swayed  this  way  or 
that  by  some  man  born  to  command.  Whether 
their  Moses  was  to  be  for  peace  or  war  they 
thought  little;  what  they  desired  above  all  else 
was  that  someone  should  arise  who  could  lead 
them  because  he  had  the  might.  "Under  which 
King,  Bezonian?"  was  not  in  their  reckoning; 
they  wanted  a  king,  and  his  standard  would  they 
follow. 

Philip  Craig  felt  this  to  a  certain  degree  when, 
on  the  following  day,  he  sat  upon  the  platform 
and  watched  the  long  rows  of  chairs  grow  black 
with  the  hosts  of  the  men  he  had  sworn  to  aid.  No 
band,  he  thought  with  a  smile  as  he  recalled  other 
great  conventions,  no  decorations,  no  flags  so 
often  travestied  and  insulted  by  dishonorable  pro 
ceedings — only  men,  representing  the  "complain 
ing  millions"  of  other  men.  When  the  seats  were 
filled  there  would  be  over  two  thousand  delegates 
and  alternates  chosen  on  a  basis  of  representation 
analogous  to  that  of  the  national  Congress,  and 
Craig  felt  a  tightening  of  the  throat  that  he  knew 
to  be  pride — pride  that  this  great  massing  of  the 
>  355 


SATAN'S  MOUNT 

best  of  the  toilers  was  the  offspring  of  his  own 
brain  and  heart.  Here  at  last  was  a  true  congress 
of  the  people,  not  representatives  of  labor  organi 
zations  merely,  for  many  were  outside  the  unions, 
but  of  all  who  worked  for  wage — clerks,  salesmen, 
tillers  of  the  soil  and  workers  on  the  sea.  It  was 
what  he  had  hoped  to  make  it,  an  organization  of 
"Weakerdom." 

Philip  was  here  to  keep  his  promise  to  address 
the  delegates  if  all  went  well.  He  was  now  sitting 
in  the  extreme  rear  of  the  platform  and  behind  a 
pillar,  so  that  he  was  seen  by  few.  He  had  again 
insisted  that  there  should  be  no  movement  to 
create  a  demonstration  for  him  until  he  was  ready 
to  speak.  Whether  his  words  would  be  called 
forth  this  day  or  the  next,  he  did  not  know;  he 
had  decided  to  be  guided  by  events. 

He  had  not  fully  given  his  heart  to  the  present 
congress,  proud  as  he  felt  of  its  expression  of  a 
people's  power.  He  believed  that  President  Bur- 
lingatne  could  be  relied  upon  at  the  right  moment 
and  in  the  right  way,  to  bring  about  the  reforms 
needed  to  lift  the  burden  from  the  shoulders  of  the 
masses.  But  he  realized  that  the  desire  to  display 
moral  strength  by  an  assembling  in  numerical 
force,  was  so  insistent  in  the  organization  that  the 
meeting  had  become  a  spontaneous  necessity.  The 
only  hope  of  making  it  harmless  lay  in  Congress, 
which  had  been  summoned  in  extra  session  and 
had  met  on  the  fourth  of  the  preceding  March. 
The  House,  •with  its  leaven  of  new  men  elected 
on  the  issue  of  the  distressed  condition  of 
the  country,  had  done  much,  but  the  Senate  still 
defiantly  continued  to  block  all  measures  of  relief. 

And  so  Philip  Craig  found  himself  face  to  face 
356 


MANOEUVRES  IN  FORCE 

with  \vliat  might  turn  out  to  be  a  great  crisis  in  the 
people's  history,  or  merely  an  adoption  of  re 
sounding  phrases  that  should  be  a  mock  for  the 
wealth-ridden  upper  branch  of  Congress,  and  a 
fresh  incentive  for  the  wrath  of  the  great  common 
people  at  home.  Either  alternative  was  enough  to 
sober  any  thinking  man,  and  Craig,  as  he  watched 
the  excited  faces  of  the  men  as  they  crowded  into 
the  auditorium,  felt  that  now,  of  all  times  in  his 
career,  he  needed  the  gift  of  wisdom  joined  to  the 
gift  of  eloquence. 

A  salute  of  some  sort  was  being  fired  over  on 
the  heights,  and  as  the  sullen  booming  quivered 
through  the  hall,  men's  faces  grew  grave  with 
forebodings,  or  flushed  with  anger.  No  one  could 
have  shaken  their  belief  that  this  army  had  been 
called  to  the  capital  for  the  sole  purpose  of  intimi 
dation,  and  with  the  belief,  called  into  fresh  ac 
tivity  by  the  sound  of  the  cannon,  came  a  spirit  of 
defiance  that  would  make  the  task  of  conciliation 
doubly  hard. 


357 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
PHILIP  CRAIG'S  PROMISE. 

THE  session  of  the  People's  Congress  was  now 
in  full  swing,  and  a  tense  excitement  marked 
the  carrying  out  of  each  step  in  the  proceed 
ings.  The  first  day's  sitting  had  been  uneventful, 
being  devoted  merely  to  the  routine  of  organiza 
tion.  But  to-day  the  situation  was  far  different. 
There  was  a  feeling  in  the  very  air  that  great 
things  were  afoot,  and  that  before  the  sun  should 
go  down  on  the  congress  some  great  policy  would 
be  outlined. 

The  chairman,  a  tall  ponderous  man  with  a  reso 
nant  voice,  but  an  air  of  timidity  that  bespoke  his 
nervousness,  had  been  calling  for  reports  from  the 
senators  of  each  state  (such  was  the  title  of  the 
chairman  of  each  delegation)  as  to  the  conditions 
of  the  section  he  represented,  and  the  special  needs 
of  his  constituency.  Several  had  spoken,  present 
ing  pictures  of  wretchedness  that  differed  only  in 
detail. 

"The  senator  from  New  York,"  called  out  the 
chairman  sonorously.  Then  arose  the  compact, 
commanding  figure  of  a  man  whom  Craig  recog 
nized  as  Henry  Brandt,  the  German  who  had  ac 
knowledged  his  authority  and  wisdom  of  judg 
ment  at  the  Labor  Day  dinner  long  ago.  For  a 
moment  he  stood  motionless,  a  beam  of  sunlight 
touching  his  fair,  curling  hair,  the  very  picture  of 

358 


PHILIP   CRAIG'S   PROMISE 

a  stalwart  philosopher  of  old  Greece.  A  great 
stillness  came  over  the  gathering,  for  beauty  of 
form  and  face  has  its  victories  no  less  than  beauty 
of  speech. 

"Men,"  he  began  quietly,  "you  have  heard  the 
reports  from  Massachusetts,  from  Connecticut, 
from  other  states.  New  York  has  no  report  that 
I  can  make.  You  know  the  conditions  in  your 
own  homes.  New  York  has  no  right  to  claim 
heavier  burdens  than  yours.  As  spokesman  of 
the  people  of  a  great  state,  I  should  not  do  my 
duty  were  I  to  tell  you  what  they  need.  The  ap 
peal  that  T  should  make  is  for  the  needs  of  all 
whom  this  congress  represents.  I — " 

Down  fell  the  gavel  of  the  chairman  with  a 
sharp  clatter,  and  Brandt  ceased  in  surprise. 

"The  delegate  from  New  York  is  out  of  order," 
said  the  presiding  officer.  "The  matter  is — " 

"I  crave  the  convention's  pardon,"  exclaimed 
Brandt  resolutely,  as  a  brief  ripple  of  applause 
went  round.  "I  have  a  message  from  New  York 
to  this  congress,  but  it  is  not  a  recital  of  her  woes. 
It  cannot  be  spoken  in  a  few  words  and  in  the  time 
allotted.  Does  this  convention  wish  to  hear  the 
message?"  he  shouted,  with  an  intensity  of  ear 
nestness  that  sent  a  thrill  of  anticipation  into  every 
heart.  "Yes,  or  no?" 

Amid  cries  of  "Yes,  yes,"  "Let's  hear  him," 
"Hurrah  for  Brandt,"  a  dozen  delegates  sprang 
to  their  feet.  The  tall  form  of  Luke  Ford,  with 
its  distinguishing  dress,  caught  the  chairman's  eye 
by  sheer  physical  necessity. 

"Mr.  Ford,  of  New  York." 

"Mr.  Chairman," — the  high-pitched  voice 
pierced  the  chattering  tumult  like  a  clarion  call — 

359 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"I  move  that  Senator  Brandt  be  allowed  to  deliver 
his  message  in  his  own  way." 

"That's  the  stuff!"  yelled  a  gaunt  Texan,  with 
a  falsetto  that  set  the  crowd  roaring  with  laughter. 
The  chairman  fumbled  nervously  with  his  gavel. 
He  did  not  know  whether  merriment  \va?  or  was 
not  parliamentary,  and  while  trying  to  decide  lost 
sight  of  the  point  at  issue. 

"Question,  question,"  was  shouted  by  a  hun 
dred  voices;  the  presiding  officer  was  recalled  to 
his  nearest  duty. 

"Is  it  the  will  of  this  convention  that— 

"Aye,"  was  the  one  thunderous  shout.  "Plat 
form,  platform!" 

Then  Brandt's  fine  figure  walked  down  the 
aisle  and  up  to  the  broad  dias.  He  turned  and 
faced  the  heaving  waves  of  humanity  with  a  calm 
that  brought  order  in  an  instant.  He  began  as 
quietly  as  he  had  begun  before : 

"They  tell  us  now  as  they  told  us  last  fall,  as 
they  told  us  the  spring  before,  that  we  must  have 
patience — that  we  must  wait.  Wait?  For  what? 
To  see  the  poor  grow  poorer,  the  rich  richer  ?  To 
see  the  crops  we  need  sold  to  feed  hired  soldiers 
in  a  foreign  war?  To  see  women  die  of  want,  with 
babes  they  have  no  strength  to  suckle  clamoring 
weakly  at  their  breasts?  Shall  we  wait  till  the  op 
pression  of  wealth  has  made  us  serfs,  to  be  fed 
when  the  master  pleases,  and  only  then? 

"I  tell  you,  men,  that  the  message  of  the  people 
of  New  York  is  that  we  must  not  wait.  It  has 
been  hinted  that  this  congress  should  draw  up  a 
petition  to  the  national  Congress  and  send  it  to 
the  capitol  by  a  committee.  If  this  committee 
were  even  admitted  to  the  Senate  it  would  only  be 

360 


PHILIP   CRAIG'S   PROMISE 

laughed  at.  The  House  we  have  won  to  us,  for  it 
is  close  to  the  people,  and,  thank  God,  the  people 
have  a  vote  when  they  choose  to  use  it.  But 
they  did  not  begin  soon  enough,  and  a  Senate  of 
moneyed  arrogants  stands  between  us  and  the  re 
forms  that  would  save  human  lives  and  suffering! 

"Why  do  I  bring  this  message  from  New  York? 
\Yhy  should  New  York  send  it  rather  than  an 
other?  Because  a  senator  from  New  York,  a  man 
high  in  the  councils  at  the  capital,  has  said  in  pub 
lic  within  five  days  that  Congress  will  not  inter 
fere  with  the  transaction  of  private  business,  that 
if  people  are  poor  and  suffer  it  is  to  be  regretted, 
but  it  cannot  be  helped.  This  man  calls  this  con 
gress  which  I  now  address,  'Cry  babies.'  Let  us 
show  him  that  we  can  cry  to  some  purpose. 

Hisses  followed  by  cheers  made  the  speaker 
pause  for  a  moment. 

"Let  us  send  a  message  to  Congress,"  he  con 
tinued.  "Let  it  be  short  in  the  reading,  so  that 
they  need  not  be  detained.  Let  the  message  read : 

"  'The  delegates  of  thirty  million  men,  the 
wage  earners  of  America,  demand  that  Congress 
place  an  embargo  upon  the  further  shipment  from 
American  ports  of  the  foodstuffs  needed  by  the 
American  people.  If  this  demand  is  not  heeded, 
this  convention,  by  vote  passed  this  day,  and  by 
the  authority  vested  in  it  by  the  people,  will  order 
a  general  suspension  of  labor  throughout  the 
country.' 

"Send  this  message,  mean  it,  and  strike  if  the 
worst  comes,  and  you  will  win." 

Brandt  sat  down  amid  a  perfect  pandemonium 
of  cheers,  handclappings  and  the  clamorous 
shouts  of  delegates  from  every  part  of  the  hall 

361 


OAr   SATAN'S  MOUNT 

frantically  striving  for  recognition,  all  anxious  for 
the  honor  of  making  a  motion  to  adopt  the  Ger 
man's  resolution.  The  ladies  in  the  gallery 
shrieked  and  waved  their  handkerchiefs  with  femi 
nine  enthusiasm.  It  was  the  outburst  of  a  human 
tempest  and  the  chairman  was  powerless  before 
the  blast. 

He  turned  helplessly  to  the  men  seated  behind 
him,  as  if  seeking  aid.  Then  he  saw  Philip  Craig 
rise  from  his  place  behind  the  pillar,  and  walk  for 
ward  slowly.  A  great  inspiration  came  to  the 
president.  He  raised  one  hand  as  if  beseeching 
silence,  while  with  the  other  he  pointed  to  the 
slim,  erect  figure  that  the  people  knew  so  well. 

For  an  instant  the  tumult  was  hushed,  and  then 
there  burst  forth  a  full-throat  shout  from  the  im 
passioned  delegates. 

"Craig,  Craig,  Craig!"  they  roared,  till  the  raft 
ers  quivered  with  the  staccato  cry.  Tt  penetrated 
to  the  crowd  outside  which  had  been  unable  to 
get  into  the  Coliseum,  and  was  flung  into  the 
balmy  air  with  a  fervor  that  amazed  the  more  se 
date  citizens  who  chanced  to  be  passing. 

The  delegates  respected  and  loved  their  former 
leader  and  present  representative  in  the  cabinet. 
That  he  had  thus  far  been  able  to  accomplish 
nothing  for  them  they  knew  was  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  prevented  by  circumstances.  They 
long  ago  realized  that  he  had  been  duped  as  well 
as  they  by  the  empty  honor  of  the  secretaryship 
of  industry.  Now  that  he  was  standing  before 
them,  was  to  speak  with  his  well-remembered  elo 
quence,  they  awaited  his  utterance  with  feverish 
expectancy. 

"Delegates  from  'Weakerdom,'  I  welcome  you 
362 


PHILIP   CRAIG'S  PROMISE 

to  Washington,"  he  began,  in  calm,  incisive  tones 
when  the  tumult  ceased.  "It  is  fitting  that  you 
have  official  welcome  in  this  city  consecrated  to 
liberty  by  years  of  political  association.  Would 
that  the  welcome  had  come  from  a  higher  source. 
They  have  told  me  that  my  presence  here  would 
be  a  stain  upon  my  office.  But  I  am  here." 

A  chorus  of  cheers  rose  to  the  roof. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  why  I  am  here?  I,  too,  have 
a  message  for  this  assembly.  I  am  here  because  I 
feel — because  I  know  that  you  as  men  and  as  dele 
gates  from  the  men  who  have  thus  honored  you, 
are  first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  honest  God-fearing 
American  citizens,  who  wish  only  that  right  may 
prevail.  Your  wrongs  are  many.  They  should  be, 
they  must  be  righted.  I  believe  they  will  be  and 
that  you  have  not  long  to  wait. 

"You  have  been  urged  to  show  your  strength 
in  threats.  Sometimes  threats  show  only  weak 
ness.  You  think,  some  of  you,  with  Mr.  Brandt, 
that  a  general  strike,  the  complete  paralysis  of  in 
dustry,  would  wrest  the  boon  you  seek  from  the 
men  who  now  say  you  nay.  Perhaps  it  would, 
but  when  and  at  wrhat  cost?  But  you  have  the  un 
doubted  right  to  try.  The  only  question  is,  is  it 
the  wisest  thing  to  do,  is  it  even  necessary?  I 
think  not.  Listen  closely,  for  what  I  say  I  believe. 
What  I  shall  say,  I  mean,  without  reservation.  I 
believe — and  T  am  wronging  no  one  to  say  that 
the  President  of  these  United  States  is  responsible 
for  my  belief — that  the  measures  for  the  relief 
which  is  your  right  will  be  begun  within  three 
days.  If  they  are  not,  I  pledge  you  my  word  of 
honor  that  I  will  resign  my  portfolio,  and,  becom 
ing  one  among  many,  abide  by  your  decision, 
"  363 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Avhatever  it  may  be.  Will  you  wait  three  days?" 
Over  the  vast  assemblage  came  the  swift  re 
versal  of  opinion  caused  by  the  earnestness,  the 
deep  conviction  of  one  man.  The  transition  had 
been  effected  with  but  few  words,  yet  they  were 
the  right  ones,  and  as  Craig  resumed  his  seat  a  tre 
mendous  burst  of  approval  drowned  the  fugitive 
signs  of  dissent,  and  showed  that  the  victory  had 
been  won.  The  Brandt  resolution  was  heard  from 
no  more  that  day. 

"How  glorious  it  is,"  mused  Philip  in  his  place 
of  retirement,  "to  turn  and  twist  men's  minds! 
This  is  the  only  real  power." 


Craig  left  the  Coliseum  at  dusk,  confident  that 
he  had  saved  the  People's  Congress  from  an  act  of 
bravado  that  would  have  rendered  impossible  the 
reform  action  which  President  Burlingame  had 
promised,  and  which  seemed  likely  to  bring  the 
obdurate  Senate  to  terms. 

The  three  days  of  grace  granted  him  by  the 
convention  seemed  to  stretch  away  into  eternity, 
so  full  were  they  of  vital  possibilities. 

After  a  brief  conference  with  some  of  the  state 
leaders,  he  went  to  his  hotel  wearied,  but  happy. 
He  would  read  a  little  before  going  to  bed,  he 
thought,  and  he  stopped  at  the  news-stand  to  pur 
chase  a  few  magazines. 

Having  made  himself  comfortable  in  his  room 
in  regulation  masculine  fashion,  he  took  up  his 
periodicals.  The  title  of  one,  "The  People's,"  at 
tracting  his  attention,  he  turned  the  leaves  idly  to 
find  something  that  would  seem  to  be  of  especial 
interest,  when  a  very  black  page-heading  met  his 

364 


PHILIP   CRAIG'S   PROMISE 

eye  and  held  it.  "A  Millionaire  Nurse,"  it  read, 
and  then  in  sub-title  more  modest  in  size,  "The 
Daughter  of  a  United  States  Senator  an  Angel  of 
Mercy  at  the  Bentley-on-Hudson  Home  for  Crip 
pled  Children." 

He  read  Flemming's  vivid,  adjective-laden  arti 
cle  with  a  greedy  desire  to  lose  no  single  word. 
When  he  had  finished,  he  sat  for  a  long  time  gaz 
ing  absently  at  the  picture  of  Helen  Norton  that 
filled  one  of  the  pages.  Then  he  went  to  his 
dream-troubled  sleep. 


365 


CHAPTER   XXXVIII. 

MEMORY    PLAYS    AN    OLD    TUNE. 

IN  John  Norton's  study  sat  the  master  of  the 
house  at  his  great  table,  his  right  elbow 
resting  upon  its  broad  surface  and  his  head 
pressed  to  the  palm  of  his  upturned  hand.  Even 
in  the  mellow  glow  of  the  lamp-light  his  face 
looked  wan  and  drawn,  and  his  eyes  were  half 
closed  in  a  listless  fashion.  On  the  other  side  of 
the  desk  stood  his  wife,  regarding  him  with  tender 
solicitude.  As  he  raised  his  glance  to  her,  she 
feigned  a  smile  to  hide  a  sigh. 

"Really,  Harriet,  you  must  not  interfere,"  he 
said  querulously.  "My  affairs  are — well,  my  af 
fairs  are  the  nation's.  As  for  my  health — that  is  a 
matter  about  \vhich  you  need  not  give  yourself 
concern.  In  a  week  or  two — when  the  present  ex 
citement  blows  over — we'll  go  away  for  a  long 
cruise,  and — and  then  I'll  be  a  boy  again. 

"Go  away?    Ah,  John,  if  you  only  would!" 

"I  will,  I  tell  you,  I  will.  Now  please, — please 
leave  me;  I  have  much  to  do.  And,  Harriet,  will 
you  please  tell  one  of  the  servants  that  when  Mr. 
Haven  calls  he  is  to  be  shown  here  at  once.  I  am 
home  to  nobody  else." 

"Yes,  John." 

The  grave-faced  woman  did  not  move,  but 
stood  irresolute,  as  if  something  were  yet  to  be 
done.  Her  gentle  glance  spoke  of  sympathy,  love, 

366 


MEMORY  PLAYS  AN  OLD  TUNE 

anxiety  and  pity,  all  the  attributes  of  the  maternal 
spirit  that  colors  the  affection  of  a  true  wife.  She 
saw  her  husband  haggard,  nervous,  distrait — 
more  so  to-night  than  ever — and  she  longed  to 
play  the  part  of  comforter,  though  she  hardly 
knew  how  to  begin. 

For  several  years  she  had  watched  the  steady 
multiplication  of  signs  that  sounded  a  loud  alarum 
in  her  heart.  To  the  world  John  Norton  might 
be  the  same  invincible  character  as  ever,  but  to 
her,  the  guardian  of  his  home  secrets,  the  mask 
was  thrown  off,  and  the  petulant,  weak,  pitiful 
real  man  stood  revealed  in  all  his  increasing  de 
generation. 

All  this  came  crowding  into  her  mind  as  she 
stood  silently  in  her  place.  Of  a  sudden  the  face 
that  had  been  bent  toward  a  document  was  raised 
toward  her  own,  and  the  deep  lines  of  something 
more  serious  than  care  brought  the  tears  to  her 
eyes. 

"Why  don't  you  go?"  said  her  husband.  "I 
must  be  a'One." 

There  was  no  command,  not  even  vexation  in 
his  voice.  It  was  rather  the  petty  impatience  of  a 
spoiled  child, 

"Very  well,  John,"  she  replied  gently,  and  left 
the  room. 

To  but  one  person  in  all  the  world  had  this  wo 
man  told  aught  of  the  mental  turmoil  and  physi 
cal  deterioration  of  John  Norton  during  the  past 
winter  and  spring  in  Washington ;  to  that  one  per 
son  she  had  described  the  sleepless  nights  when, 
without  her  husband's  knowledge,  she  had  lain 
awake  listening  to  the  terrible  monotony  of  his 
pacing  footsteps  up  and  down  their  chamber;  to 

367 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

him  she  had  spoken  of  the  disconnected,  half- 
mumbled  soliloquies  from  which  she  had  tried  in 
vain  to  gather  sequence.  That  man  was  a  physi 
cian,  a  famous  specialist  on  mental  diseases,  and 
when  he  attempted  to  reassure  her  with  graceful 
phrases,  she  knew  he  lied,  diplomatically  and  out 
of  kindness  of  heart,  but  nevertheless  lied. 

The  doctor  felt  that  Norton  would  live  out 
his  life  as  it  pleased  him,  and  that  advice  of  a  really 
helpful  nature  would  be  futile.  So  he  prescribed 
a  stimulating  drug  to  be  used  for  a  short  time 
only. 

But  Norton,  soothed  and  refreshed  by  the  po 
tions,  clung  to  them  with  the  desperation  of  hope 
until  they  had  become  his  master  instead  of  his 
servant.  His  wife  was  soon  shocked  to  find  that 
the  drug,  taken  to  excess,  had  begun  to  show  a  re 
action  that  threatened  the  worst. 

Only  a  few  nights  before,  in  the  dim  light  of 
their  chamber,  she  had  seen  her  husband  take 
three  doses  in  rapid  succession,  and  not  until  the 
light  of  dawn  shimmered  upon  the  window  panes 
had  she  parted  with  the  fear  that  she  might  be 
compelled  to  summon  aid. 

Only  one  hope  now  remained  to  her,  and  to  it 
she  clung  with  the  energy  of  love.  In  one  of  his 
recent  nocturnal  vagaries,  perhaps  in  a  dream, 
her  husband  had  muttered  something  that  she 
understood  and  which  filled  her  with  a  great  joy. 
The  plan  it  suggested  she  put  into  effect  at  once, 
and  she  was  even  now  anxiously  expecting  a  re 
ply  to  a  letter  she  had  written. 

As  she  came  into  the  hall  to  summon  a  servant 
she  saw  the  younger  Bayles  coming  up  the  stairs. 

368 


MEMORY  PLAYS  AN  OLD  TUNE 

He  carried  something  in  his  hand  which  he  ex 
tended  towards  his  mistress. 

"Telegram  fer  you,  Mum,"  he  said  with  his 
queer,  jerky  little  bow. 

"When  did  it  come?" 

"Jest  a  minute  ago.  Me  and  Doc  was  at  the 
gate  a-smokin' — " 

"Very  well;  thank  you,"  interrupted  the  lady. 
"As  yon  go  please  tell  the  door  man  that  if  Mr. 
Haven  calls,  he  is  to  show  him  at  once  to  Mr.  Nor 
ton's  study,  and  that  Mr.  Norton  is  not  at  home 
to  anyone  else." 

"Yes'm,"  returned  "Muggsy"  with  his  old-time 
parsimony  of  words.  To  himself  he  was  more 
communicative,  however,  and  as  he  went  down 
stairs  he  thus  reflected:  "Mr.  Haven!  Humph! 
He's  a  rank  outsider  an'  his  gait's  bad.  'F  I  was 
'John  Peter'  he'd  never  be  hitched  inter  my  sulky." 

Mrs.  Norton  read  her  telegram  with  feverish 
haste.  ''Thank  God,  she  will  come,"  she  ex 
claimed  fervently,  and  then,  woman-like,  wept  at 
the  joy-giving  message.  After  a  little  time  she 
rang  for  a  servant  and  ordered  the  carriage  to  be 
ready  in  an  hour. 

Andrew  Haven  came  and  was  admitted  in  due 
form.  He  found  his  chief  pacing  the  library  floor, 
and  the  look  upon  his  face  increased  the  alarm  he 
had  felt  when  he  had  been  summoned  from  New 
York  ten  days  before.  He  tried  to  assure  himself 
by  the  thought  that  the  tremendous  strain  and  the 
natural  anxiety  were  having  but  a  temporary  effect 
upon  the  senator,  and  that  "John  Peter"  was  but 
mortal  after  all.  But  he  was  not  quite  prepared 
for  the  vehemence  with  which  he  was  greeted. 

"Well,  man,  you're  here  at  last,  are  you?"  cried 
369 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Norton  petulantly.    ''I  thought  you'd  never  come. 
Sit  down  and  tell  me  all  that's  happened." 

"Why — why,"  ventured  Haven,  glancing  at  the 
table,  "you  have  the  papers." 

"Papers!  What  do  they  know?"  said  Norton, 
seeming  angry  at  the  mere  suggestion.  "I  want 
information  at  first  hand.  You  were  at  the  Coli 
seum,  weren't  you?" 

As  a  matter  of  fact  Haven  had  not  been  inside 
the  big  building,  but  he  was  too  much  of  a  coward, 
under  the  present  circumstances,  to  admit  that  he 
had  failed  to  obey  instructions. 

"Well — that  is — yes,"  he  stammered. 

"Well,  well !" 

Haven  concocted  a  plausible  story,  with  a  bit  of 
invented  color,  made  up  from  the  newspaper  ac 
counts  and  street  gossip — how  the  People's  Con 
gress  had  been  stampeded  by  the  eloquent 
Brandt,  and  then  turned  right-about-face  by  the 
earnestness  of  Craig. 

The  senator  frowned  deeply  at  the  mention  of 
the  name. 

"Craig,  Craig — always  Craig!"  he  ejaculated. 

"But,"  urged  Haven,  with  an  impulse  of  rare 
fair-mindedness,  "if  it  hadn't  been  for  him,  they 
certainly  would  have  voted  a  general  strike,  unless 
the  Senate — " 

"Gave  'em  pensions,  I  suppose.  Bah !  Well, 
how  did  this  Craig  demigod — gogue,  I  mean- 
stop  them?" 

"With  assurances  that  Congress  would  grant 
them  relief  within  three  days,  or  if  not — " 

"If  not — well,  go  on,  man.  Don't  be  so  infer 
nally  slow." 

'370 


MEMORY  PLAYS  AN  OLD  TUNE 

"He  would  resign  his  portfolio',"  said  Haven, 
badly  scared  at  Norton's  ferocity. 

"And  strike  and  starve  and  rot  with  them,  I 
suppose.  Have  you  seen  the  men  I  told  you  to?" 

"All  but  Cartwright." 

"He's  safe.  I  had  a  letter  to-day.  And  the 
others?" 

"They  agreed  to  take  no  step  without  your  con 
sent — "" 

"Good." 

"All  except  Senator  Burpee." 

"Ah,  I  was  afraid  of  him — Haven,  hand  me  that 
glass  of  water  on  the  secretary,  there.  Thanks." 

He  took  the  tumbler  with  trembling  hands,  and 
poured  into  it  the  colorless  contents  of  a  little 
phial  he  had  drawn  from  his  waistcoat  pocket.  As 
by  magic,  the  draught  brought  color  to  his  face 
and  a  bright  light  to  his  eyes. 

"But  he  was  persuaded,"  continued  Haven. 
"The  argument  that  brought  him — Lord  and 
Pratt  made  it  at  my  request — was  that  now  above 
all  times  it  is  imperative  to  the  salvation  of  capital 
that  labor  shall  not  be  given  knowledge  of  its 
power ;  that  compromise  spells  revolution ;  that  an 
inch  of  yielding  on  our  part  means  an  ell  of  grasp 
ing  on  theirs." 

"Very  good,  Andrew,"  said  his  chief,  with  a 
touch  of  his  old  sardonic  manner  of  speech  to  his 
sycophant,  "you  put  it  aptly.  What  do  you  think ; 
will  they  strike?" 

"Yes,  if  nothing  is  done." 

"Something  will  be  done,"  exclaimed  Norton 
rising  to  his  feet  with  a  feebly  triumphant  air. 
"Something  zvill  be  done,  but  it  will  not  be  what 

371 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

they  expect.  If  that  strike  is  voted,  blood  will  flow 
before  this  mock  congress  adjourns." 

"Oh,  I  hope  not — indeed,  I  trust  not,"  quavered 
Haven  with  genuine  agitation.  In  case  of  a  seri 
ous  storm  he  felt  that  the  lightning  might  be  ex 
pected  to  strike  uncomfortably  close  to  himself. 

"It  will,  I  tell  you,  Haven,"  almost  shrieked 
Norton.  "I  know  what  I  am  talking  about. 
I— I—" 

All  at  once  the  tall  figure  sank  into  a  chair,  col 
lapsing  pitiably  after  the  false  excitement  of  the 
moment  before.  The  drug  had  already  become 
but  a  transitory  stimulus,  and  the  reaction  came 
sooner  and  sooner  with  each  day's  use.  Norton's 
head  hung  forward  over  his  chest,  and  his  eyes 
stared  vacantly  at  the  figures  in  the  carpet. 

"Mr.  Norton,  Mr.  Norton!"  exclaimed  Haven. 

The  voice  of  alarm  raised  the  financier  some 
what,  and  he  roused  from  his  stupor. 

"Here  are  some  letters  your  page  gave  me  when 
I  went  to  the  Senate-chamber  in  the  hope  of  find 
ing  you." 

Norton  took  the  packet  mechanically,  and  held 
it  in  both  hands  as  if  it  were  some  great  weight. 
He  thanked  Haven  and  bade  him  good-night,  a 
sufficient  hint  that  the  interview  was  ended.  The 
little  man  backed  slowly  out,  his  glance  fixed  on 
his  chiefs  face.  Once  he  seemed  on  the  point  of 
checking  his  retreat,  but  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  disappeared. 

John  Norton  stared  vacantly  at  the  pile  of  let 
ters,  still  clutched  in  his  two  hands.  Then,  in  the 
manner  that  color  appeals  to  childhood  or  the  un 
skilled  mind,  a  large,  garish  yellow  envelope  fixed 

372 


MEMORY  PLAYS  AN  OLD  TUNE 

his  attention.  He  let  the  others  fall  in  a  mass  on 
the  table,  keeping  only  this  one  in  his  grasp.  In  a 
large,  sprawling  hand  it  was  addressed: 

JOHN  PETER  NORTON, 

U.  S.  SENATE. 

Slowly,  with  a  vague  apprehension  that  every 
strange  superscription  now  aroused  in  him,  he 
opened  the  envelope  and  unfolded  its  contents.  In 
blood-red,  clumsily  printed  letters  he  saw  this : 

"You  and  yours  can  give  the  people 
life.  Will  you  do  it,  or  shall  it  be  death 
for  death?'' 

The  actual  threat  had  less  power  to  move  him 
than  had  its  foreboding.  He  laughed  softly  and 
tore  the  paper  into  a  hundred  bits  that  fluttered 
down  about  his  feet. 

"Fools,  fools,"  he  said,  as  he  sank  back  into  his 
chair.  An  unusual  sense  of  drowsiness  was  creep 
ing  over  him,  and  he  closed  his  eyes,  glad  that  he 
might  steal  a  few  minutes'  sleep  from  the  night 
that  was  coming  on. 


There  was  no  answer  to  repeated  knocking 
on  the  library  door.  In  the  hall  stood  Mrs.  Nor 
ton  and  beside  her  a  beautiful,  fair  woman  with  a 
proud  poise  of  the  head  and  a  face  whose  gentle 
loveliness  \vas  becoming  more  and  more  a  coun 
terpart  of  her  mother's.  Just  beyond  was  a  man 

373 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

so  low  in  stature  that  he  seemed  dwarfed  by  the 
Iwo  women.  But  the  eyes  that  shone  from  his 
pudgy  face  were  like  no  others. 

"He  is  probably  asleep,  Helen,"  said  the.  elder 
woman  softly.  "Let  us  go  in  quietly." 

Indeed,  it  seemed  like  sleep  to  the  three  who 
entered  the  room.  Mrs.  Norton  touched  her  hus 
band  gently  on  the  shoulder,  but  he  did  not  wake. 
A  quick  glance  at  his  breast  reassured  her,  for  he 
was  breathing  quietly.  She  kissed  him  on  the  fore 
head. 

"John,  dear,  wake.     Here  is  Helen." 

The  figure  quivered,  the  head  was  raised  feebly, 
and  a  smile  flitted  over  the  thin  lips. 

"I — I — see — there."  He  raised  his  left  hand 
with  a  slowness  like  that  of  great  age.  the  fingers 
gripped  tightly  over  the  thumb.  Then  the  arm 
dropped  nervelessly  upon  the  chair,  the  fingers  re 
laxed,  and  a  broad,  white  welt  shone  in  the  lamp 
light. 

"Helen,  you  say?  Why,  yes,  my  little  Helen, 
my  pretty,  wilful  girl — no  more  of  it,  Bayles,  do 
you  hear? — my  horses  shan't  be  branded — it  burns 
her  tender  little  heart — blue  ribbons,  ha,  ha — 
Merciful  God,  how  did  she  escape?"  With  a  deep 
sigh  the  once  powerful  man  fell  back  unconscious. 

Out  of  the  tender  memories  of  her  childhood 
came  a  flood  of  tears  for  Helen  Norton,  tears  of 
love,  of  contrition,  of  deep  solicitude.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Bentley  stole  softly  from  the  room,  the  light 
of  a  great  compassion  glorifying  his  face. 

The  doctor  whom  he  summoned  with  the  utmost 
haste  told  them  that  there  had  been  a  paralytic 
stroke.  There  was  no  cause  for  alarm,  he  said ;  a 
day  or  two  would  find  the  patient  quite  himself 

374 


MEMORY  PLAYS  AN  OLD  TUNE 

again,  except  that  he  might  never  regain  the  full 
use  of  his  left  hand.  Being  wise  in  his  generation, 
he  advised  silence  so  far  as  the  outside  world  was 
concerned.  He  knew  that  it  would  never  do  to 
upset  the  stock-market  at  this  juncture  by  the 
news  of  a  great  financier's  illness. 


375 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

IN    CABINET   MEETING. 

CLEAR  sunlight  and  the  crisp  air  that  often 
adds  its  tonic  to  the  Washington  spring 
time  marked  the  morning  of  the   i8th  of 
April.     Everything,  the  weather  bureau  included, 
promised  fine  conditions  for  the  celebration  of  the 
following  day. 

The  city  was  thronged  with  thousands  of  strang 
ers  drawn  by  the  attractions  of  the  unveiling  of 
the  monument;  the  presence  of  the  army  and  the 
assembling  of  the  People's  Congress;  hotels  and 
lodging  houses  struggled  under  the  burden  of  pro 
viding  room  for  the  multitude  and  gave  it  up  in 
despair.  The  Coliseum  was  turned  into  a  dormi 
tory,  and,  as  that  was  woefully  insufficient,  hun 
dreds  of  men  were  camping  in  tents  on  the  out 
skirts  of  the  city.  The  bands,  the  troops,  the  het 
erogeneous  crowds,  swelled  by  a  small  army  of 
malcontents  and  disturbers  from  other  cities,  made 
of  Washington  the  most  conglomerate  theatre  of 
human  activity  since  the  far-off  days  of  the  great 
Civil  War. 

Early  on  this  morning  a  message  came  to  Philip 
Craig  notifying  him  that  a  special  cabinet  meet 
ing  was  to  be  held  at  noon.  Most  of  his  time  up 
to  that  hour  he  occupied  with  official  corre 
spondence.  He  was  preparing  to  leave  his  hotel 

376 


IN    CABINET    MEETING 

for  the  White  House  when  a  hall-boy  came  rush 
ing  up  to  his  room  with  a  card. 

"Berry  important,  Massa  Craig,"  exclaimed  the 
breathless  darky  who  brought  it.  "De  gemman's 
jest  crazy  to  see  you,  sah." 

On  the  bit  of  paste-board  was  engraved  the  name 
of  John  Wesley  Landor,  and  in  ink  were  written 
the  words,  "Urgent.  Few  minutes  only." 

"Show  him  up,  Sam,"  said  Philip.  He  knew 
that  Landor  was  now  manager  of  the  Washington 
bureau  of  the  Associated  Press,  and  he  felt  that  it 
was  no  idle  errand  that  had  dictated  his  call. 

Landor  arrived,  fatter,  rosier  and  apparently  as 
impassive  as  ever.  But  Craig  knew  from  the 
strained  look  about  his  mouth  that  something  was 
exciting  him. 

"Good  morning,  Landor,"  he  said  cordially. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Secretary.  I  know  you  are 
in  haste,  and  I — " 

"  'Mr.  Secretary'!  why  not  'Craig'?" 

"Well  then,  Craig.  It  is  because  you  are  Craig 
that  I  am  here.  Are  we  absolutely  alone?"  He 
looked  about  half-distrustfully. 

"Why,  yes,"  returned  Philip  smiling,  "I  think  I 
can  assure  you  that  these  walls  have  no  ears. 
There  is  my  father's  room,  and  he  is  out.  There 
is  my  bed-room,  empty." 

But  Landor  was  not  satisfied.  He  opened  the 
hall  door  and  looked  up  and  down  the  corridor. 

"Excuse  me,  Philip,  but  it  \vould  ruin  me  if  it 
were  known  that  I  warned  you  of  this,  and  I  can't 
afford  to  take  any  chances." 

"Warned  me?    Of  what?" 

The  newspaper  man  came  close  to  the  secretary, 
and  he  spoke  low. 

377 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"A  cabinet  meeting  is  called  for  to-day." 

"Why,  I  know  that  already." 

"Yes,  but  you  don't  know  that  a  cabinet  meet 
ing  was  held  last  night  without  you." 

Craig's  face  grew  grave  at  once. 

"No,  I  didn't  know  that." 

"Fact,  though.  Some  of  the  party  bosses  knew 
this  meeting  was  to  be  called.  There's  a  leak  at 
the  White  House  somewhere." 

"I  have  thought  so." 

"It  is  also  known  that  the  President  is  to  take  a 
decisive  step,  of  what  nature  I  can  only  guess.  You 
probably— 

"Yes,  I  have  reason  to  believe  I  know  its  pur 
port,"  interrupted  Philip,  with  confidence,  "but 
how—?" 

"How  does  it  concern  you?  Simply  that  fore 
warned  is  forearmed.  I  have  it  straight  that  the 
cabinet  will  oppose  the  plan  of  compromise. 
Urged  on  by  Pratt  and  Stuyvesant  Lord  and  sev 
eral  other  senators,  they  have  agreed  to  resist  to 
the  last  extremity  to  keep  the  President  firm  to  the 
party  policy." 

Philip's  eyes  sparkled,  and  his  face  shone  with 
the  hope  founded  on  complete  trust. 

"Let  me  tell  you,  Landor,"  he  exclaimed,  "that 
threats  will  be  of  little  avail,  if — as  I  suspect, — Mr. 
Burlingame  has  made  up  his  mind  to  take  definite 
action." 

"What  they  will  do  I  don't  know,"  pursued  the 
other,  "but  the  most  extreme  of  the  senators  are 
very  jubilant  this  morning." 

"Norton,  I  presume — : 

"No,  he  was  not  present." 

378 


IN    CABINET    MEETING 

"Well,  there's  nothing  significant  about  that. 
He  prefers  agents." 

"At  any  rate,"  said  Landor,  putting  on  his  hat, 
"you  are  prepared,  and  that's  something." 

"And  I  thank  you,  John.  I  shall  better  know 
what  to  do." 

The  men  left  the  hotel  by  different  exits,  and 
Philip  was  soon  swinging  along  Pennsylvania  Av 
enue  toward  the  Executive  Mansion.  A  great  ex 
altation  urged  him  on,  and  the  fine  spring  air  gave 
him  more  of  the  joy  of  living  than  he  had  known 
for  some  time.  He  felt  that  to-day  his  promise  to 
the  people  was  to  be  fulfilled,  for  he  was  sure  that 
President  Burlingame  was  ready  to  make  good  his 
word  to  him  that  should  speedy  relief  not  be  given, 
he  would  throw  the  enormous  weight  of  his  own 
official  position  into  the  balance,  and  face  the  issue. 
In  all  this  he,  Craig,  would  gain  new  laurels, 
which  no  sane  man  could  afford  to  despise,  and 
more  than  ever  would  he  be  known  as  the  cham 
pion  of  the  oppressed.  The  power  of  wealth  that 
he  was  to  oppose — he  scorned  it.  The  only  real 
power  was  that  over  the  minds  and  hearts  of  man 
kind,  and  that  seemed  to  be  his  birthright. 

When  he  entered  the  cabinet  chamber,  with  its 
massive  furnishings  and  dark,  rich  walls,  some 
thing  of  his  spiritual  elevation  left  him,  and  there 
came  the  old  determination  to  fight  injustice,  the 
stubborn  sense  of  having  a  duty  to  perform  at  all 
costs.  He  found  that  the  majority  of  the  members 
had  already  assembled. 

Craig  was  received  with  the  usual  difference  of 
greeting.  Some  of  the  cabinet  officers  showed  ill- 
disguised  condescension,  and  others  as  evident  cor 
diality,  for  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  most  of  them 

379 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

regarded  his  office  as  a  useless  appendage  to  the 
body  politic  and  himself  as  an  interloper,  they 
felt  that  he  was  a  man,  and  honestly  devoted  to 
the  cause  for  which  he  labored.  The  rascal  has 
often  the  sincerest  respect  for  his  opposite. 

As  Craig  took  his  seat  and  waited  with  the  others 
for  the  arrival  of  the  President,  he  realized  how 
true  were  the  slurs  of  the  opposite  party  on  the 
calibre  of  the  cabinet.  It  was  a  pitifully  weak  ag 
gregation,  save  for  the  two  men  who  dominated  it. 
They  were  David  Baker  Pratt,  the  secretary  of  state, 
who  had  been  a  western  lawyer  of  great  acumen 
and  adroitness  in  the  handling  of  others,  and 
Stuyvesant  Lord,  the  railroad  magnate,  now 
postmaster  general.  These  two,  the  one  by  his 
well-lubricated  shrewdness  and  the  other  by  his 
hard-headed  domineering  force,  ruled  the  rest  com 
pletely,  and  things  had  reached  that  point  where 
the  majority  were  entirely  willing  to  be  so  held,  so 
long  as  a  fair  division  of  the  accrued  spoils  were 
made. 

Craig  plainly  noted  an  undercurrent  of  excite 
ment  around  the  long  table.  He  saw  Lord  and 
Pratt  whisper  together,  then  separate  to  whisper 
with  the  lesser  figures ;  he  saw  nods  and  smiles  and 
meaning  glances  at  himself,  but  he  sat  uncon 
cerned.  All  such  things  had  long  since  lost  their 
power  to  annoy  him,  and  now  he  knew  that  his 
ally  was  coming. 

At  the  sound  of  the  President's  voice  outside  all 
rose  until  he  had  entered  and  taken  his  seat.  Craig 
looked  with  admiration  at  his  massive  frame  and 
his  fine  head,  with  its  frank  blue  eyes  and  thick 
brown  beard  streaked  with  gray.  He  looked  what 
he  was,  a  "safe"  man.  With  no  great  intellectual- 

380 


ity,  and  few  oratorical  graces,  he  inspired  the  con 
fidence  that  when  once  roused  he  would  follow 
his  convictions  to  the  utmost. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said,  wasting  no  time  after 
bowing  to  his  cabinet,  "I  have  called  you  together 
to-day  because  of  a  duty  that  I  consider  impera 
tive.  I  had  hoped  that  Congress — or,  more  cor 
rectly,  the  Senate — would  render  action  on  the  part 
of  the  executive  unnecessary,  but  I  am  assured 
that  the  present  deadlock  between  the  Senate  and 
the  House  will  continue.  I  feel  that  something 
must  be  done  to  restore  public  confidence  and  to 
encourage  the  people  with  the  prospect  of  better 
things.  Before  I  go  further,  I  should  like  an  ex 
pression  from  you  as  to  what,  in  your  opinion,  the 
necessities  of  the  case  demand." 

He  looked  toward  his  secretary  of  state,  who  sat 
at  his  right,  and  the  eyes  of  all  the  others  were  bent 
on  Mr.  Pratt,  a  tall,  exceedingly  thin  man,  with  a 
broad  forehead,  narrow  eyes  set  far  apart,  a  prom 
inent  nose,  and  a  thin,  straggling  growth  of  beard, 
nearly  white.  He  bore  an  appearance  of  senility 
that  was  entirely  misleading.  Now  he  pushed 
back  his  chair  a  little,  cleared  his  throat  and  in 
quired  in  his  thin,  high-pitched  voice : 

"It  appears,  Mr.  President,  that  you  wish  an 
expression  as  to  what  shall  be  done  to  placate  the 
element  that  professes  to  see  danger  in  present 
business  methods?" 

The  chief  executive  bowed  gravely.  He  did  not 
like  the  secretary's  presentation  of  the  case,  but 
this  was  no  time  for  splitting  hairs. 

"On  this  point,"  resumed  Mr.  Pratt,  "I  can  say 
only  that  whatever  it  may  be  wise  to  do  in  the 
future,  I  can  see  nothing  that  can  be  done  now. 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Yesterday's  public  threat  by  the  labor  convention, 
whose  presence  in  the  capital  at  this  time  I  regard 
as  an  insult  to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
makes  impossible  any  sign  of  wavering  on  the  part 
of  the  government." 

He  looked  across  the  table  for  the  approving 
nod  of  Lord,  and  then  both  glanced  up  and  down 
the  row  of  cabinet  officers. 

"It's  all  right,"  he  thought,  as  he  swiftly  noted 
their  faces.  "They'll  stand  firm,  all  except  that 
Craig  there,  and  he  doesn't  count." 

"I  feel,"  continued  Pratt,  "that  to  abandon  in 
the  least  degree  the  position  of  the  majority  of 
Congress  would  impair  public  confidence  instead  of 
strengthen  it,  and  would  be  giving  cartc-blanche  to 
anarchy.  We  must  be  firm,  if  the  rule  of  agitators 
is  not  to  replace  that  of  conservative  interests. 
That  is  the  feeling  I  have  in  the  matter;  more 
words  would  be  useless." 

"I  thank  you,  Mr.  Secretary,"  said  the  President 
briefly.  "And  you,  Mr.  Post-master  General?"  he 
queried,  turning  to  the  round-headed,  red-faced 
man  on  his  left. 

"I  can't  say's  T  can  add  anything  to  what  the 
secretary  of  state  has  been  remarkin',"  said  Lord, 
brusquely.  "It  sums  up  the  situation  jest  about 
right,  and  I  guess  we  all  agree  on  the  points."  As 
he  read  acquiescence  in  each  face  save  that  of 
Craig,  to  whom  he  gave  no  attention,  he  smiled 
blandly  as  if  to  say:  "You  see  about  how  it  is, 
Mr.  President." 

Secretary  Pratt  was  somewhat  taken  aback  at 
the  frank  revelation  of  the  postmaster-general.  It 
had  not  been  a  part  of  his  scheme  that  previous 
agreement  should  stand  quite  so  conspicuously 

382 


7-V    CABINET    MEETING 

before  the  President.  He  opened  his  mouth  to 
utter  some  smooth,  quieting  phrase,  but  the  Pres 
ident  forestalled  him. 

"It  appears,  gentlemen,"  he  said  with  an  un 
wonted  touch  of  sarcasm  and  a  deeper  flush  on  his 
cheeks,  "that  this  is  not  a  meeting  for  discussion, 
but  for  the  announcement  of  a  previously  deter 
mined  decision.  Perhaps  I  am  mistaken.  Mr. 
Chamberlain,  have  you  any  opinion  to  offer?" 

The  secretary  of  war,  whose  smooth,  pink,  in 
fantile  face  gave  the  wags  ample  opportunity  for 
saying  that  he  was  a  walking  advertisement  for 
his  own  successful  toilet  soap,  had  long  ago  learned 
that  silence  was  his  only  salvation  in  Washington, 
and  he  shook  his  head  sagely.  He  had  built  a 
great  reputation  for  himself  by  merely  looking 
wise.  The  rest  followed  his  example,  and  simply 
expressed  acquiescence  in  the  words  of  the  secre 
tary  of  state. 

"Mr.  Craig,  what  have  you  to  say?" 

Philip  started  as  if  roused  from  a  dream.  He 
had  been  wondering  what  would  happen  if  the 
President  should,  after  all,  show  the  white  feather 
before  this  almost  perfect  unanimity  of  his  cabinet ; 
when  the  awful  stagnation  of  the  country's  indus 
try  would  begin,  and  what  his  own  share  in  the 
movement  would  be. 

"Mr.  Craig,"  said  the  President  again,  "is  there 
anything  you  wish  to  say?" 

Philip  knew  that  the  eloquence  of  a  Webster 
would  scarce  suffice  for  what  he  wished  to  say, 
and  knew,  too,  that  it  would  avail  nothing  against 
the  concerted  decision  of  the  others.  But  he  rose 
slowly,  feeling  that  he  must  be  on  his  feet  in  such 
a  crisis. 

383 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Mr.  President,"  he  began  with  intense  solem 
nity,  "I  feel  almost  too  deeply  on  this  subject  to 
risk  words  which  must  here  be  futile.  That  my  as 
sociates  care  little  for  my  views  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  they  did  not  see  fit  to  include  me  in  their 
meeting-  of  last  night;  at  which  this  policy  was  de 
termined  upon." 

The  smothered  ejaculation  that  came  to  Lord's 
lips  told  Craig  that  his  aim  was  true.  The  Presi 
dent's  blue  eyes  blazed  with  sudden  anger,  and  it 
was  evident  that  he,  too,  had  known  nothing  of 
the  midnight  conference. 

"But  I  should  not  do  my  duty  to  the  people  of 
this  nation,"  Craig  continued  steadily,  "if  I  kept 
silence.  My  opinions  as  to  the  rights  and  wrongs 
of  this  matter  are  too  well-known  to  require  re 
cital.  The  present  situation,  however,  is  not  theo 
retical.  Whatever  the  cause,  the  predicament  of 
the  common  people,  the  middle  classes,  the  men 
without  assured  income,  is  desperate.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  they  have  spoken  through  accredited  rep 
resentatives,  and  have  declared  that  if  the  wished- 
for  relief  is  not  granted  by  Congress — and  when 
Congress  is  said  the  Senate  is  meant — they  will 
order  a  strike  that  will  bring  industry  to  an  abso 
lute  standstill  throughout  the  country.  They  can 
do  this,  and  I  believe  they  will.  This  may  be  a 
threat,  but  have  there  been  no  threats  against 
them? 

"God  knows  that  I,  as  much  if  not  more  than 
any  one  of  you  here,  would  deplore  such  an  out 
come.  But,  Mr.  President,  if  the  people  are  not 
listened  to,  they  will  make  themselves  heard.  They 
spoke  at  the  ballot-box  last  November,  but  your 
Senate  is  deaf.  First  it  was  appeal;  then,  in  the 

384 


IN    CABINET   MEETING 

voting,  it  was  warning;  now  it  is  demand.  The 
nation  trembles  for  your  answer." 

His  voice  quivered  with  emotion  as  he  concluded 
and  resumed  his  seat.  He  could  see  that  he  had 
affected  the  weaker  ones,  but  he  knew  that  the  in 
fluence  was  but  transitory.  One  look  from  Lord 
would  bring  them  back  to  their  allegiance. 

"Has  anyone  anything  to  say  in  reply  to  Mr. 
Craig?"  asked  the  President.  The  secretary  of 
state  responded  icily: 

"The  cry  of  the  demagogue  is  too  familiar.  It 
is  its  own  answer." 

Furious  with  anger,  Craig  would  have  leaped 
to  his  feet,  but  that  he  saw  the  President's  hand 
raised  and  noted  a  new  look  of  supreme  determi 
nation  on  his  face.  No,  he  would  make  no  per 
sonal  squabble  of  the  affair;  the  issue  must  fight 
itself  out  on  broader  principles.  The  President 
was  speaking,  and  he  listened  eagerly  for  the  words 
that  he  felt  were  to  bring  the  matter  to  a  climax. 

"Nothing  has  been  said,  gentlemen,  to  change 
my  views,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Burlingame,  earnestly. 
"The  nation  is  in  suffering  and  peril,  and  it  is  my 
duty  to  relieve,  if  I  can,  the  stress  that  is  crippling 
the  people.  I  have  here  a  message" — and  he  lifted 
a  folded  paper  from  the  table — "which  I  shall  send 
to  Congress  after  to-morrow's  holiday.  It  wrill  do 
more  than  urge,  it  will  demand  the  passage  of  a 
bill  prohibiting  the  further  exportation  of  grain 
and  foodstuffs.  The  House,  I  am  assured,  will  pass 
this,  as  it  has  passed  similar  measures  of  relief  of 
the  situation." 

He  paused  for  a  moment  and  looked  steadfastly 
at  the  sneering  Pratt  and  the  bullying  Lord,  as  if 
to  hammer  the  words  deep  into  their  conscious- 

385 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

ness.  Then  he  went  on,  with  a  gravity  of  which 
no  one  would  have  previously  believed  him 
capable : 

"If  the  Senate  continues  in  its  role  of  obstruc 
tion,  and  also  refuses  to  agree  with  the  House  as 
to  the  time  of  adjournment,  I  shall,  under  the 
right  given  me  by  the  constitution,  adjourn  Con 
gress,  and,  as  executive  head  of  this  nation,  take 
such  measures  as  I  can  to  restore  confidence  and 
prosperity." 

Craig's  astonishment  at  this  radical  and  uncom 
promising  step  was  no  greater  than  that  which  he 
felt  as  he  saw  that  the  members  of  the  cabinet  ex 
hibited  no  emotion  at  the  bold  words.  Then  he 
remembered  his  information  of  the  morning;  there 
was  a  ''leak  at  the  White  House." 

First  of  all  the  heads  of  departments  to  reply  to 
the  President's  gage  of  battle  was  the  adroit  sec 
retary  of  state.  With  words  of  apparent  courtesy 
he  deprecated  the  proposed  move  as  very  undesir 
able.  He  appealed  to  the  President  to  do  nothing 
that  would  put  the  administration  in  the  role  of 
retreating  under  fire,  especially  when  conditions 
were  so  unsettled.  Under  his  smooth  speech  were 
the  hooks  of  steel,  and  none  knew  this  better  than 
Mr.  Burlingame. 

Pratt  called  upon  the  attorney-general  for  an 
opinion  as  to  the  legal  and  constitutional  right  of 
the  President  to  do  as  he  had  threatened,  and  that 
functionary  obediently  said  that  the  thing  was 
without  warrant  or  precedent. 

"I  am  obliged  to  the  attorney-general  for  his 
opinion,"  replied  the  President,  "but  I  have  faith 
in  the  people  and  in  the  right.  I  must  proceed  as 

386 


IN    CABINET    MEETING 

conscience  and  long  and  anxious  study  dictate.  I 
shall  take  the  action  I  have  outlined." 

Pale  with  suppressed  anger,  the  secretary  of 
state  rose  slowly  to  his  feet.  He  had  his  trump 
card  to  play,  and  neither  he  nor  his  associates 
doubted  its  efficacy. 

"Should  you  insist  upon  this  course,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,"  he  said,  "I  would  be  forced  in  self-respect  to 
tender  you  the  resignation  of  my  portfolio." 

Mr.  Burlingame's  eyes  again  flashed  fire,  but  he 
answered  calmly. 

"Bigger  man  than  we  thought,"  reflected  Lord, 
with  a  growing  admiration  for  the  strength  that 
was  cousin  to  his  own,  "but  he  must  be  licked." 

"I  had  feared  this,"  replied  the  President.  "I 
presume,  Mr.  Attorney-General,  that  you  could 
not  support  my  position  by  your  continued  pres 
ence  at  the  head  of  your  department?" 

"No,  Mr.  President,  I  could  not." 

"Then  you,  too,  resign?" 

"I  do." 

"And  you,  Mr.  Postmaster-General?  You  are 
determined  to  follow  the  example  of  the  secretary 
of  state?" 

"Quite  correct,"  replied  Lord,  curtly.  He  never 
liked  the  President  so  much  as  now,  but  principle 
was  principle. 

One  by  one  the  others  signified  their  intention 
of  quitting  the  cabinet  should  the  obnoxious  mes 
sage  be  sent  to  Congress. 

"And  Secretary  Craig?"  said  the  President  at 
last.  Philip  rose  with  the  respect  he  had  always 
shown  the  chief  executive. 

"My  duty,  as  I  understand  it,"  he  said,  "is  not 

387 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

only  to  advise  but  to  support  the  President.  I 
remain  in  the  cabinet." 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Burlingame  quietly,  "you 
have  offered  your  resignations  from  the  cabinet 
and  from  your  departments.  That  there  may  be  no 
misunderstanding,  will  you  kindly  tender  them  in 
writing  for  my  consideration.  Unless  there  is  fur 
ther  business,  I  shall  adjourn  this  meeting." 

No  one  of  the  dazed  gentlemen  of  the  cabinet 
offering  a  word,  Mr.  Burlingame  rose  and  left  the 
room.  Of  the  discomfited  and  disappointed  mem 
bers  Secretarv  Pratt  was  the  first  to  recover  his 

ml 

self-possession.  He  signaled  Lord  and  the  rest  to 
follow  him,  and  in  a  corner  the  men  held  a  whis 
pered  consultation  apart  from  Craig.  He  no 
longer  felt  the  slightest  resentment;  he  could 
afford  to  smile  at  the  situation  and  did  smile,  so 
that  the  bullet-headed  Lord  caught  the  look  of 
amusement  and  barely  stopped  a  round  impreca 
tion  from  escaping  between  his  clenched  teeth. 
With  a  pleasant  "Good  afternoon,  gentlemen," 
Philip  parted  from  his  associates. 

They  decided  that  the  course  of  wisdom,  indeed 
the  only  course,  lay  in  sending  their  written  resig 
nations  as  requested  by  the  President.  Possibly 
the  very  gravity  of  the  act  might  so  impress  Mr. 
Burlingame  that  he  would  abandon  his  position. 

Meantime  the  most  urgent  messages  were 
rushed  to  the  party  leaders  informing  them  of  the 
seriousness  of  the  situation.  They,  in  turn,  called 
upon  the  President  to  urge  him  not  to  cause  the 
disruption  of  the  administration  by  an  act  that 
seemed  ill-considered.  The  chief  executive  re 
ceived  them  graciously  enough,  but  declined  to 
discuss  the  matter  in  any  of  its  phases. 

388 


IN    CABINET   MEETING 

The  newspapers  of  the  following  morning 
startled  the  country  and  the  world  with  the  an 
nouncement  that  the  President  had  accepted  indi 
vidually  the  written  resignations  of  the  members  of 
his  official  family — all  save  that  of  Secretary  Craig, 
who  would  stand  by  the  administration.  They  also 
printed  a  statement  from  the  President  that  he 
would  send  the  names  of  his  new  cabinet  to  the 
Senate  on  the  day  after  the  holiday. 

That  night,  Philip  Craig,  the  sole  remaining  offi 
cer  of  President  Burlingame's  cabinet,  spent  three 
hours  with  his  chief  in  a  secret  conference  that  not 
even  the  ambassador  of  the  greatest  nation  in 
Europe  was  allowed  to  interrupt. 


389 


CHAPTER  XL. 

THE    NINETEENTH    OF   APRIL. 

PATRIOT'S  Day  beautifully  fulfilled  the  pre 
dictions  made  for  it  by  the  experts,  and  fur 
nished  the  perfection  of  sky  and  air  for  the 
great  celebration.  Physically  the  city  was  a  marvel 
of  color  and  brilliancy.  From  end  to  end  the 
avenues  of  the  states  were  edged  with  flags,  stream 
ers  and  bunting,  and  at  the  approaches  to  the 
most  beautiful  capitol  in  the  world  were  arches  of 
superb  design  and  richest  decoration  planned  by 
the  great  artists  of  the  country.  It  seemed  as  if  all 
the  latent  patriotism  of  the  land  had  suddenly 
burst  into  sight  with  the  colossal  flare  of  flags,  the 
cacophony  of  myriad  bands,  the  steady  tramping 
of  troops,  the  wild  rush  of  the  multitude  hither  and 
thither  in  search  of  a  new  sensation  and  the  dull 
apprehensiveness  that  somehow  lay  beneath  the 
surface  of  all  this  resounding  excitement. 

The  People's  Congress  had,  it  is  true,  adjourned 
over  the  holiday,  but  it  had  at  the  same  moment 
denounced  the  celebration,  with  its  tremendous 
military  display,  as  "another  case  of  fiddling  while 
Rome  was  burning."  It  was  an  outrage,  the  con 
vention  declared,  that  this  money,  wrung  from  the 
sufferings  of  a  people,  should  be  frittered  away 
upon  extravagant  show,  bombastic  noise,  and  the 
flaunting  of  gold  lace.  The  day  sacred  to  the 

390 


THE  NINETEENTH  OF  APRIL 

heroism  of  the  fathers  was  desecrated  beyond 
measure,  it  asserted. 

Craig  and  the  leaders  of  Congress  noted  with 
much  concern  the  horde  of  the  unruly  that  had  fol 
lowed  in  the  train  of  the  delegates  and  the  legiti 
mate  sight-seers,  like  vultures  after  a  caravan. 
Never  in  the  history  of  Washington,  the  secret  ser 
vice  men  said,  had  a  celebration  brought  to  the 
capital  such  an  army  of  the  "powers  that  prey;" 
never  had  there  been  such  a  wholesale  deportation 
of  known  rascals.  The  thousands  who  were  not 
known  stayed,  and  threatened  to  infect  the  excited 
mass  of  better  men  with  the  base  leaven  of  their 
love  of  disorder. 

The  people  were  dominated  by  unrest,  nor  was 
the  morning's  news  of  the  political  situation  calcu 
lated  to  calm  them.  The  sensational  resignation 
of  the  entire  cabinet,  save  one  man,  proved, 
although  the  papers  were  singularly  silent  as  to 
the  facts,  that  there  must  have  been  a  bitter  quarrel 
between  the  President  and  his  advisers,  and  that 
the  cause  of  the  break  must  have  been  the  question 
of  policy  as  to  answering  the  demands  of  the  nation 
for  relief.  Black  chaos  seemed  to  loom  before 
many,  nor  could  the  solution  be  foreseen.  The  day 
had  not  far  advanced  when  an  inkling  of  the  true 
state  of  affairs  filtered  down  from  high  places  to 
the  ears  of  the  common  people,  but  it  failed  to 
reassure  them. 

Of  one  thing  they  felt  certain,  however:  that 
President  Burlingame  had  shown  himself  their 
friend.  What  he  could  do  was  problematical,  but 
for  what  he  would  do  they  honored  him. 

And  so  it  happened  that  when  the  President,  on 
the  great  black  horse  whose  every  mood  he  knew 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

so  well,  rode  through  the  living  lanes  of  excited 
humanity,  under  festoons  of  gorgeous  drapery,  to 
the  stand  where  he  was  to  review  the  troops,  a 
mighty  roar  of  approval  kept  pace  with  his  horse's 
hoofs,  smothering  the  booming  of  cannon  and 
drowning  the  bray  of  military  bands.  Head  un 
covered,  he  bowed  to  right  and  left  with  never- 
ceasing  regularity,  wondering  somewhat  at  his 
sudden  popularity,  but  glowing  with  the  knowl 
edge  that  adherence  to  duty  had  for  once  brought 
its  reward  in  the  shape  of  public  applause. 

The  feelings  of  the  secretary  of  war,  who  at  the 
same  moment  was  the  recipient  of  public  attention 
on  a  side  street  off  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  were 
never  made  known,  but  those  who  saw  him  during 
the  episode  were  willing  to  swear  that  he  at  least 
appeared  uncomfortable.  He  was  being  driven  to 
the  railroad  station  in  an  open  carriage,  and  was 
recognized  by  some  of  the  crowd.  Epithets  not 
savory  were  followed  by  a  few  vegetables  not  quite 
fresh,  and  it  took  a  squad  of  mounted  police  to 
rescue  the  ex-cabinet  officer  from  the  wrath  of  the 
mob. 

Rumor  magnified  this  sporadic  outburst  into  a 
great  rising,  and  the  city's  uneasiness  increased. 
Of  course,  there  was  the  army,  but  its  actual  em 
ployment  meant  bloodshed.  Good  citizens  prayed 
that  no  spark  should  strike  the  tow  of  the  people's 
anger. 

The  procession,  the  review,  and  the  unveiling 
of  the  colossal  statue  of  the  Minute  Man  passed  off 
with  no  marring  episodes.  The  President  broke 
the  cords  that  let  the  great  silken  flags  from  the 
heroic  bronze;  a  poem  was  read  by  California's 
illustrious  son,  Markham  Miller;  a  profound  and 

392 


THE  NINETEENTH  OF  APRIL 

eloquent  oration  was  delivered  by  the  Hon.  Phil 
lips  Lloyd,  of  Massachusetts;  a  hymn  to  the 
forefathers  was  sung  by  a  chorus  made  up  of 
singers  from  every  state  in  the  Union,  and,  amid 
a  mighty  salvo  of  artillery,  the  crowds  spread 
themselves  out  once  more  over  all  Washington, 
and  prepared  to  forage  for  their  midday  meals. 
For  some  the  process  was  a  glutted  weariness,  for 
more  an  assured  matter  of  fact,  and  for  others  a 
desperate  search.  But  somehow  or  other  all  were 
fed,  and  in  readiness  for  the  afternoon's  manoeuvres 
of  the  troops. 

Craig  spent  the  morning  in  his  new  apartments, 
to  which  he  had  removed  for  greater  quiet,  and 
with  his  father  was  arranging  his  library  in  place, 
when  a  deputation  from  the  People's  Congress 
called  and  requested  an  interview.  After  an  hour's 
earnest  conversation,  the  committee  withdrew,  and 
a  little  later  reported  to  their  associates  that  the 
secretary  of  industry  was  firm  in  the  belief  that 
President  Burlingame  would  inaugurate  measures 
of  relief  with  the  reassembling  of  Congress  next 
day. 

Philip  did  not  witness  the  afternoon's  evolutions 
of  the  soldiers,  for  he  found  that  the  strain  of  the 
past  few  days  had  begun  to  tell  on  his  nerves.  He 
knew  that  he  needed  a  respite  from  the  turmoil  of 
the  city,  and  he  was  surfeited  with  bands  and 
shouts  and  cannonading.  So  he  and  his  father, 
who  was  glad  enough  to  go  anywhere  away  from 
the  uproar,  took  a  car  for  Mount  Vernon. 

There  in  the  noble  home  of  George  Washington, 
the  secretary  fell  under  the  spell  of  sublime  peace 
that  comes  to  every  true  American  who  visits  that 
beautiful  shrine.  The  broad  green  acres,  the 

393 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

superb  trees,  the  classically  simple  mansion  seemed 
to  carry  him  away  from  the  world  of  strife  and  suf 
fering  and  fill  his  heart  with  a  happiness  he  had  not 
known  for  years. 

In  the  plain  chamber  where  the  First  President 
had  died,  where  even  now  were  the  furnishings 
upon  which  his  eyes  had  rested  until  the  film  of 
dissolution  had  shut  out  all  mortal  light,  father  and 
son  stood  in  reverent  silence  for  many  minutes.  It 
was  Angus  who  first  spoke. 

"Aye,  Philip,  there  zvas  a  mon.  An  aristocrat, 
if  ye  will,  an'  rich,  too.  But  the  gowd  never 
tarnished  his  soul,  an'  power  never  blinded  him  tae 
the  richts  o'  the  people.  Oh,  the  deeference,  the 
deeference.  I  wad  we  had  ane  like  him  this  day." 

"Would  to  God  we  had!"  said  Philip  solemnly. 
The  hallowed  room  faded  from  his  view,  and  he 
saw  again  the  wealth-ridden,  merciless  Senate,  the 
mercenary  cabinet  that  had  just  ceased  to  be,  and 
the  princes  of  finance  who  were  draining  the 
country  of  the  bread  of  life  to  aid  a  foreign  war. 
The  need  of  some  great  and  masterful  man  was 
pressing,  but  whence  and  how  would  he  arise? 
The  President?  He  was  honest  and  sincere,  but 
was  he  strong  enough  to  win  the  fight? 

Before  the  tomb  of  him  whom  the  nation  calls 
"Father,"  Philip  renewed  his  vow  to  battle  for  the 
down-trodden,  to  defend  "Weakerdom"  always,  no 
matter  what  the  cost,  or  whether  ignominy  or  fame 

became  his  portion. 

*    *    * 

Over  in  the  city  the  din  of  mimic  battle  smote 
the  ear  at  every  turn.  A  sham  attack  on  the 
capital  was  under  way,  and  great  guns  roared  and 
bellowed  at  the  outlying  ends  of  all  the  main 

394 


THE  NINETEENTH  OF  APRIL 

avenues.  Behind  them  were  barricades  of  cotton- 
bales,  bags  of  sand,  and  cumbersome  upturned 
drays.  Then  came  the  soldiers,  grimy  and  perspir 
ing  from  their  work  of  hurried  fortification, 
hundreds  of  them  on  the  house-tops  firing  rattling 
volleys  into  space. 

Near  the  capitol  stood  General  Felix  Mac- 
Mahon,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  defending 
army,  and  to  him  incessantly  dashed  mounted 
orderlies  and  then  dashed  off  again.  The  cry  of 
bugles  pierced  the  deeper  sound  of  the  guns  with 
a  shrill  soprano. 

Thronging  the  central  streets  were  the  thous 
ands  of  sight-seers,  frenzied  with  the  wild  delight 
that  comes  with  the  sound  of  exploding  gun 
powder.  Only  some  of  the  negroes  who  did  not 
understand  groveled  in  terror,  convinced  that 
Washington  was  being  assailed  by  some  foreign 
foe  who  would  give  no  quarter.  Dusky  preachers 
shouted  of  the  wrath  of  God  for  the  sins  of  the 
great.  Thieves  plied  their  profession  under  cover 
of  the  din  and  excitement,  and  relieved  the 
populace  of  their  purses  with  perfect  impartiality. 

With  a  long  semi-circle  outside  the  city,  stretch 
ing  from  the  Potomac  to  East  Branch,  the  thin 
line  of  the  attacking  army  was  gradually  closing  in. 
Under  command  of  the  Adjutant-General,  the 
forces  were  at  last  ordered  to  charge. 

President  Burlingame  was  riding  up  and  down 
along  the  defense  He  had  not  thoroughly  ap 
proved  of  the  military  mock-heroics,  but  since 
they  had  been  decreed  by  the  war  department,  he 
had  not  cared  to  oppose  them  actively.  And  now 
that  the  clash  of  arms  was  in  simulation  he  thought 
it  best  to  show  himself  as  much  as  possible  in 

395 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

public.  So  his  firm  figure,  knitted  to  his  superb 
horse,  became  a  familiar  sight  during  the  after 
noon.  And  ever  he  was  greeted  with  wild  cheers. 

As  the  advance  of  the  assaulting  force  became 
plainly  evident,  an  officer  pulled  his  horse  up 
sharply  by  the  side  of  the  President. 

"We  must  get  behind  the  guns,  Mr.  President," 
he  exclaimed  hurriedly.  "Of  course  they're  only 
blank  charges  but  horses  are  very  apt  to  object. 
If  you  will  follow  me  I  can  show  you  an  opening 
into  the  lines." 

Mr.  Burlingame  smiled  and  shook  his  head. 

"Why  take  trouble  to  go  so  far  around?"  he 
said,  pointing  to  the  barricaded  end  of  a  street, 
"I'll  take  this  way." 

He  spoke  to  his  horse  sharply,  and  the  great 
animal  broke  into  a  swinging  gallop,  heading 
straight  for  the  high  barrier  of  cotton-bales.  The 
soldiers  behind  parted  in  swift  surprise. 

One  touch  of  the  spur  and  the  splendid  horse 
vaulted  into  the  air  and  over  the  obstruction 
without  grazing  a  heel.  A  shout  of  applause  burst 
from  the  men,  and  then  they  turned  at  the  word  of 
command  to  receive  the  enemy. 

With  furious  volleyings  and  cannonadings, 
charges  and  counter-charges,  retreats  and  ad 
vances,  the  sham  attack  on  Washington  was  at 
last  technically  repulsed,  and  comparative  quiet 
reigned  once  more. 

There  now  remained  in  the  day's  celebration 
only  the  trial  of  a  new  electric  field  gun  invented 
by  M.  Deschapelles,  the  world-famous  deviser  of 
new  mechanisms.  The  gun  was  stationed  on  Ar 
lington  Heights,  and  thither  the  President  rode 

396 


THE  NINETEENTH  OF  APRIL 

with  his  aides  and  the  army  officers  who  were  to 
witness  the  test. 

The  affair  was  simplicity  itself.  A  huge  car 
tridge  of  peculiar  circular  construction,  with  a 
small  orifice  for  the  escape  of  the  steel  slug,  and 
filled  with  the  most  powerful  explosive  known, 
was  set  into  the  breech  and  the  gun  closed.  The 
President,  who  stood  on  a  slight  elevation  behind 
the  cannon  with  a  group  of  army  officers,  held  his 
finger  on  a  tiny  button  ready  to  give  the  pressure 
that  should  detonate  the  charge. 

A  word  from  Gen.  MacMahon,  a  downward 
movement  of  the  finger,  a  terrific  roar,  the  sharp 
hiss  of  a  piece  of  metal  hurtling  through  the  air, 
and  in  the  place  where  the  President  had  stood 
was  a  horrible,  significant  void.  Other  figures 
beside  his  had  also  disappeared. 

After  an  instant's  dazed  helplessness,  many 
officers  and  a  surgeon  gathered  about  the  group 
of  the  fallen.  Then,  with  blanched  face  and  staring 
eye-balls,  the  doctor  looked  up  at  the  Lieutenant- 
General,  and  shook  his  head,  pointing  with  mute 
eloquence  to  the  shimmering  dome  of  the  capitol 
across  the  river. 

Gen.  MacMahon's  plan  was  made  in  an  instant. 
He  commanded  absolute  silence  on  the  part  of  all 
the  immediate  witnesses  of  the  dreadful  catastro 
phe,  while  to  the  onlookers,  who  had  been  kept  at 
a  distance  by  lines  of  soldiers,  it  was  given  out  that 
one  of  the  army  officers  had  been  killed.  The  bluff 
old  general  believed  that  falsehood  was  justified  by 
the  excited  condition  of  the  people. 

But  some  of  the  more  observant  noticed  that  the 
magnificent  black  horse  that  had  brought  the 

397 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

President  to  Arlington  was  ridden  back  to  Wash 
ington  by  another  man ! 

Consternation  and  wild  amazement  ruled  among 
the  party  leaders  and  high  officials  to  whom  the 
news  was  secretly  carried  with  the  utmost  dispatch. 
A  conference  was  at  once  held  at  the  White  House 
between  Gen.  MacMahon,  the  late  President's 
private  secretary,  Edward  Trent,  and  a  few  subordi 
nates  of  departments.  It  was  decided  to  send  for 
the  Chief  Justice  at  once,  and  to  move  heaven  and 
earth  to  find  Philip  Craig,  who,  it  was  reported, 
was  not  at  his  apartments. 

With  his  customary  acumen,  ex-Secretary  of 
State  Pratt  smelt  out  the  meeting,  and  within  an 
hour  of  the  President's  death  appeared  at  the 
White  House  to  protest  against  the  swearing  in  of 
Philip  Craig  on  the  ground  that  the  law  of  succes 
sion  did  not  specify  the  office  of  secretary  of 
industry  in  so  many  words.  Gen.  MacMahon  was 
furious  with  anger. 

"The  man  is  President  of  the  United  States,  sir," 
he  shouted,  "and  neither  you  nor  your  coterie  can 
change  that  great  fact.  Here  and  now  I  recognize 
him,  and  it  only  needs  the  presence  of  the  Chief 
Justice  and  himself  to  make  that  recognition 
lawful." 

"Calm  yourself,  General,"  sneered  Pratt.  "You 
are  over-zealous  now  that  there  is  no  secretary  of 
war  to  keep  you  in  check.  It  was  not  always 
thus." 

"Sir,"  raged  the  honest  old  soldier,  "sir, — 
you—" 

"The  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,"  called 
out  a  messenger,  and  all  rose  in  respect  for  the 

398 


THE  NINETEENTH  OF  APRIL 

venerable  head  of  the  Supreme  Court,  who  entered 
the  room  leaning  heavily  on  a  cane. 

His  decision  was  prompt.  The  amendment  to 
the  law  which  read  "and  thence  to  the  heads  of  all 
other  departments  of  the  government  that  shall 
hereafter  be  created,"  was  sufficient,  he  said.  He 
would  administer  the  oath  of  office  to  Mr.  Craig  at 
once. 

But  the  man  of  all  men  who  was  wanted  could 
not  be  found.  Messengers,  secret  service  men  and 
labor  delegates  scoured  the  city  in  vain.  The 
hours  dragged  on  in  heart-breaking  suspense  until 
nightfall,  and  still  there  were  no  tidings  of  Craig. 
His  enemies  said  that  he  had  stolen  away  in 
cowardly  flight,  while  his  friends  hinted  that  he 
had  been  done  to  death  by  the  tools  of  the 
plutocracy. 

Shortly  before  eleven,  as  Philip  and  his  father 
approached  the  entrance  of  their  apartment  house, 
the  younger  man  was  surprised  to  see  the  tall  form 
of  Luke  Ford,  and  another  man  whom  he  knew  to 
be  a  secret  service  officer,  pacing  regularly  before 
the  door.  An  instant  more  and  Ford  had  grasped 
him  by  the  hand  and  was  wringing  it  frantically. 

"For  God's  sake,  where  have  you  been,  man?" 
he  almost  screamed.  "Absenting  yourself  this  way 
when  they  are  half  crazy  to  get  you  to  take  the 
oath.  It's  terrible!" 

"Oath  ?  What  oath  ?"  repeated  Philip  vacantly. 
Ford's  voice  dropped  to  a  hoarse  whisper,  as  he 
comprehended  all. 

"You  are  President  of  the  United  States,  Philip ; 
the  accident  to  Mr.  Burlingame — " 

He  stopped  as  he  saw  Craig  reel  in  his  tracks 
and  grasp  the  iron  fence,  clinging  like  a  drunken 

399 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

man  to  the  pickets  for  support.  A  deathly  pallor 
overspread  his  face,  and  his  lips  moved  spasmodi 
cally,  but  no  sound  came  from  behind  them.  Ford 
drew  out  a  flask  and  forced  a  few  drops  of  brandy 
between  his  teeth,  and  that  and  his  own  strength 
of  will  brought  him  to  himself  again. 

"President!"  he  said  slowly,  as  if  he  had  never 
pronounced  the  word  before.  "President !  But 
tell  me—" 

"In  a  moment,  Philip,"  replied  Ford,  as  a  closed 
carriage  came  around  a  corner  in  answer  to  the 
secret  service  man's  whistle.  "Get  in  here,  quick, 
and  I'll  explain  on  the  way." 

Ten  minutes  later  the  carriage,  drawn  by  a  pair 
of  furiously  galloping  horses,  came  to  a  halt  at 
the  White  House  entrance.  The  three  men  who 
alighted  found  Private  Secretary  Trent  awaiting 
them  in  his  private  office.  Immediately  the  Chief 
Justice,  who  had  gone  to  one  of  the  chambers  for 
a  little  rest,  was  summoned,  and  with  the  simple 
formula  that  had  long  been  the  wonder  of  the 
world,  invested  Philip  Craig  with  the  title  and 
powers  of  President  of  the  United  States. 


400 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

GENERAL  MACMAHON'S  PLEDGE. 

THE  shock  of  President  Burlingame's  death 
was  followed  by  the  awe  that  invariably  at 
tends  the  passing  of  a  chief  executive  in 
office.  That  the  end  was  tragic  still  more  intensi 
fied  public  sentiment,  and  for  the  moment  a  deep 
hush  fell  upon  Washington.  So  well  had  the  secret 
been  kept  that  the  first  general  news  of  the 
calamity  was  spread  abroad  by  the  morning  papers, 
cried  about  long  before  the  city  was  awake.  The 
details  were  most  exhaustive,  including  the  fever 
ish  search  for  Secretary  Craig,  the  quarrel  between 
Pratt  and  Gen.  MacMahon,  and  the  taking  of  the 
oath  at  night.  Incidentally  it  was  noted  that 
Deschapelles,  the  inventor  of  the  gun  that  had 
wrought  such  havoc,  had  disappeared  and  was 
believed  to  have  committed  suicide;  but  few  gave 
much  heed  to  that  in  the  deeper  significance  of  the 
news. 

The  first  solemnity  over,  there  came  a  great, 
an  overwhelming  exultation  among  the  people  that 
the  dispensation  of  death  had  raised  one  of  their 
own  to  the  Presidency ;  a  profound  gratitude  that 
Philip  Craig  had  been  far  from  the  scene  and  not 
standing  beside  Mr.  Burlingame,  as  might  well 
have  been  the  case.  Some  great  power,  they  said, 
had  called  him  to  the  tomb  of  Washington  when 
the  destroying  angel  stalked  abroad. 

401 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Slowly  the  members  of  the  People's  Congress 
began  to  come  out  from  the  Coliseum,  where  they 
had  been  in  session  but  a  brief  time.  No  man 
knew  now  what  an  hour  would  bring  forth,  or  what 
the  convention  itself  could  find  to  do.  The  bril 
liant  leader  whose  dramatic  promise  had  thrilled 
their  Congress  into  acquiescence,  was  now  the 
head  of  the  nation,  with  all  the  powers  of  that 
exalted  station.  Surely  something  must  come  of 
the  wonderful  train  of  circumstances. 

No  other  topic  of  conversation  than  this  was  to 
be  heard  among  the  knots  of  men  who  lingered  in 
front  of  the  great  building. 

"But  I  don't  understand,  Bruce.  How  can  he 
be  President?" 

The  speaker  was  a  queer  old  fellow  with  a  little, 
wrinkled  face,  a  long  wisp  of  hair  on  his  chin,  and 
the  garb  of  nearly  half  a  century  before.  He 
smoked  an  ancient  clay  pipe  with  spasmodic  puffs, 
and  seemed  to  justify  the  jocose  title  of  the  "Oldest 
Inhabitant"  which  some  brother  delegates  had 
bestowed  upon  him. 

"By  law,  Jerry,  by  law,"  answered  Bruce — the 
very  Bruce  with  whom  Philip  Craig  had  so  nearly 
come  into  collision  on  a  rain)''  night  some  years 
before.  He  had  gained  polish  since  then,  and 
expressed  himself  better. 

"But  in  my  time — "  quavered  the  "Oldest  In 
habitant." 

"In  your  time,  Jerry,"  interrupted  Bruce,  "there 
were  lots  of  things  that  were  no  good.  But 
now,  thank  God,  the  American  workingman  is  as 
good  as  his  betters."  With  which  truly  oracular 
statement,  Bruce  shrugged  his  broad  shoulders 
and  elevated  his  shaggy  eyebrows,  with  the  con- 

402 


GENERAL   MACMAHON'S   PLEDGE 

viction  of  having  said  something  that  would  make 
the  day  memorable. 

"But  how,"  continued  the  pertinacious  old 
man,  "did  this — what's  this  his  name  is? — this 
Craig,  how'd  he,  a  newcomer,  jump  into  the 
Presidency?" 

Bruce  surveyed  his  inquisitor  pityingly.  Much 
as  he  valued  his  own  rights  of  self-assertion,  it  was 
his  custom  to  bully  all  others  for  the  expression  of 
theirs,  at  least  when  he  felt  that  he  could  do  so 
safely. 

"He  doesn't  tell,  old  friend,"  interposed  the 
clear-cut  voice  of  Brandt,  the  German,  who  had 
overheard  the  conversation,  "because  he  doesn't 
know  himself." 

Bruce  scowled  at  the  speaker,  but  as  his  shoul 
ders  were  higher  than  his  own,  and  fully  as  power 
ful,  he  forebore  to  interrupt. 

"It's  simple  enough,"  continued  Brandt.  "With 
no  vice-president  the  secretary  of  state  would 
have  succeeded  President  Burlingame.  But  he, 
with  all  the  others  of  the  cabinet,  except  Mr.  Craig, 
resigned  day  before  yesterday.  Their  resignations 
had  been  accepted,  but  Burlingame,  poor  fellow, 
did  not  live  to  appoint  their  successors.  You  see 
the  new  law — " 

The  wild  laugh  and  shrill,  eerie  voice  of  a  woman 
broke  in  upon  the  German's  measured  tones. 
Hisses  and  cries  interrupted,  but  the  voice  strug 
gled  on  in  screaming  cadence. 

"Burlingame,  and  now  Craig.  The  King  is 
dead;  long  live  the  King!" 

They  turned  and  saw  an  extraordinary  spectacle. 
A  large,  florid  woman,  bedecked  in  tawdry  finery 
rather  the  worse  for  wear,  was  standing  on  an  iron 

403 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

bench  haranguing  the  crowd,  which  was  alter 
nately  denouncing  and  laughing  at  her. 

"Craig  is  President  and  you  adjourn,"  she 
shrieked,  shaking  a  large  fist  at  her  hearers.  "You 
do  no  more  than  the  false  Congress  up  there  in  the 
capitol.  They  adjourn.  You  were  sent  here  to 
act.  Novv's  the  time.  Will  Craig,  President,  be 
any  better  to  you  than  another?  Why  don't  you 
find  out?  I—" 

At  this  point  a  man  sprang  to  the  bench  and 
whispered  something  in  her  ear.  She  smiled 
vacantly  and  followed  him  down  and  away  with  the 
docility  of  a  child.  Another  man,  who  had  accom 
panied  him,  remained  behind. 

"What's  the  matter,  Langmaid?"  asked  a  by 
stander  who  knew  the  little  shoe-operator. 

"Poor  Geoffrey  Fairbrother's  wife  slipped  out  of 
their  boarding-house  this  morning,  and  got  over 
here  somehow.  She's  not  well,  and  the  excite 
ment — " 

"Oh,  it  was  Mrs.  Fairbrother,  was  it?"  ex 
claimed  Bruce.  "I  know  all  about  her.  Used  to 
make  lots  of  money,  wasn't  satisfied  and  lost  every 
thing  speculating,  even  her  mind." 

But  the  question  screamed  at  the  crowd  by  a 
deranged  woman  was  asked  many  times  that  day 
by  men  of  cool  good-sense.  What  would  Craig 
do,  what  could  he  do  toward  the  fulfilment  of  his 
pledge? 

The  People's  Congress,  before  its  adjournment 
out  of  respect  for  the  late  President,  had  appointed 
a  committee  to  wait  upon  President  Craig,  and  had 
voted  to  meet  from  day  to  day  until  there  should 
be  something  to  report.  They  were  not  wholly 


404 


GENERAL   MACMAHON'S   PLEDGE 

averse  to  delay,  for  their  expenses  were  paid  and 
Washington  was  a  pleasant  place  in  springtime. 

The  conservative  element  declared  that  Presi 
dent  Craig  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  do  more 
than  he  had  already  done.  They  pointed  out  the 
fact  that  he  had  made  official  announcement  of  the 
death  of  President  Burlingame  to  both  branches 
of  Congress,  and  had  suggested  an  adjournment  to 
the  following  day,  when  he  would  call  to  their 
attention  some  matters  that  were  close  to  the  heart 
of  the  dead  executive. 

The  radicals  saw  no  certainty  of  action  in  this. 

"What  does  he  mean  by  that?"  asked  Luke 
Ford,  voicing  well  enough  the  opinions  of  his  set. 
"It  may  be  much,  but  more  likely  it's  little." 

The  new  President's  intent  puzzled  others  in 
higher  places.  The  leaders  of  the  Senate  held  a 
conference  that  lasted  far  into  the  night,  and 
rumor  had  it  that  Andrew  Haven  had  been  present, 
at  least  during  a  portion  of  the  meeting. 

Next  day  both  branches  of  Congress  met  at  the 
usual  hour.  Again  there  seemed  to  be  a  holiday  in 
Washington,  subdued  by  grave  events,  yet  full  of 
the  undercurrent  of  deep  feeling.  Great  crowds 
assembled  around  the  capitol,  for  here,  it  was  as 
sumed,  would  be  the  theatre  of  momentous  acts. 
Perfect  order  was  voluntary,  and  the  police  had 
little  to  do. 

As  the  members  of  Congress  assembled  they 
were  compelled  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  tens  of 
thousands  of  eyes,  lighted  either  with  hostility  or 
approval.  A  popular  member  of  the  lower  House 
would  be  saluted  by  the  raising  of  hats  by  many; 
a  senator  known  to  be  hostile  to  the  people  would 
be  received  with  dull  murmurs  as  he  passed.  It 

405 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

was  well  for  the  peace  of  mind  of  some  of  them  that 
they  could  not  catch  the  drift  of  the  sotto  voce 
remarks. 

At  last  an  auto-car  rolled  up  to  the  capitol  steps 
bearing  two  passengers,  one  a  tall,  big-framed 
man,  with  his  left  arm  in  a  sling,  the  other  a  short 
individual  wearing  large,  round  spectacles.  Some 
one  recognized  the  big  man  and  shouted  his  name 
to  his  neighbors. 

"It  can't  be  him,"  replied  somebody  else.  "The 
papers  say  he's  sick." 

"Papers  !    H'mph.    It's  Norton  fast  enough." 

"What  Norton?    John  Peter  Norton?" 

"Yes,"  roared  a  tremendous  voice.  "John  Peter 
Norton,  the  man  who's  brought  misery  to  the 
people.  Down  with  him  !" 

With  the  speed  of  an  electric  current  the  name 
passed  from  lip  to  lip,  and  as  the  strong-faced  man 
was  seen  slowly  ascending  the  capitol  steps,  leaning 
on  the  arm  of  his  smaller  companion,  a  deep  long- 
drawn  hiss,  like  the  escape  of  surcharged  steam, 
arose  on  the  air  and  reached  the  ears  of  the  two. 

Half  way  up  in  his  ascent,  Norton  paused,  with 
drew  his  arm  from  Haven's  and  stretched  it  toward 
the  crowd.  As  suddenly  it  dropped  to  his  side,  but 
the  upturning  of  his  prominent  chin  and  his  defiant 
pose  spoke  his  contempt.  He  turned  and  walked 
slowly,  firmly  up  the  remaining  steps  unaided.  He 
could  hear  the  hisses  until  he  passed  into  the  lobby 
of  the  great  building. 

Haven  quaked  with  terror  and  stumbled  along 
after  his  chief,  with  many  reproaches  for  his  fool- 
hardiness.  He  had  used  his  utmost  endeavor  to 
keep  Norton  at  home  on  the  ground  of  his  health, 

406 


GENERAL   M ACM  AEON'S   PLEDGE 

and  had  been  strongly  seconded  by  the  family  and 
the  physician. 

"No  more  of  this  nonsense,"  Norton  had  ex 
claimed  sternly.  "You,  doctor,  feel  my  pulse — my 
arm — does  it  shake?  I  am  as  much  myself  today 
as  ever — more  so,  they  will  find,  more  so." 

Earlier  in  the  day  one  of  the  newspapers,  recog 
nizing  the  unprecedented  chance  for  exploiting 
itself,  had  obtained  permission  to  erect  an 
enormous  blackboard  in  the  plaza  before  the 
capitol,  and  had  made  telegraphic  connections 
between  it  and  its  representatives  in  the  reporters' 
galleries  of  both  houses.  Now,  as  the  clicking  of 
the  instruments  began  to  be  heard,  there  was  a 
great  surging  of  thousands  toward  the  stand. 

"Both  houses  are  appointing  committees  to  ar 
range  for  the  late  President's  funeral,"  was  the  first 
bulletin  chalked  up  in  huge  letters  on  the  black 
board. 

"A  message  from  the  President  reaches  the 
House.  It  is  now  being  read." 

Then  there  was  a  long  wait,  and  the  applause 
that  had  started  feebly  on  the  announcement  of  the 
news  died  away  in  the  tense  impatience  that 
followed. 

"The  President  declares  that  an  embargo  must 
be  placed  on  exportation  of  foodstuffs." 

A  resounding  cheer  swelled  out  over  the  sea  of 
heads,  and  shouts  for  the  new  ruler  who  had  dared 
to  act  filled  the  air. 

"The  message  is  not  President  Craig's,  but  one 
which  he  says  President  Burlingame  had  pre 
pared,"  announced  the  board. 

The  crowd,  easily  turned  from  joy  to  dejection, 
read  this  with  apprehensive  silence.  Bruce,  Brandt, 

407 


SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Ford  and  a  few  others  of  the  New  Yorkers,  who 
were  in  a  little  group  near  the  stand,  looked  serious 
at  the  information. 

"Always  harking  back  to  Burlingame — who's 
dead,"  commented  Brandt.  "I  fear,  friends,  we 
shall  wait  in  vain  for  initiative  on  the  part  of 
Craig." 

Ford's  gaunt,  sallow  face  grew  darker  with  dis 
pleasure. 

"By  God,  if  he  fails  us  now — " 

Another  tremendous  outburst  of  cheers  drowned 
the  threat  completely.  The  men  turned  to  the 
bulletin. 

"The  message  was  President  Burlingame's," 
they  read,  "but  it  declares  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
Congress  as  sworn  representatives  of  the  people,  to 
grant  relief  to  the  country.  President  Craig 
endorses  and  reinforces  it." 

Now  came  in  rapid  succession  the  bulletins  of 
events  within  the  splendid  building,  awaited  with 
breathless  interest  by  the  swaying  multitude  out 
side,  and  greeted  with  hurrahs  or  hisses,  as  the 
case  might  be.  The  people  learned  that  the  Senate 
had  laid  the  President's  message  on  the  table ;  that 
the  House  had  passed  a  relief  bill  under  suspension 
of  the  rules;  that  the  Senate  had  received  the 
House  bill  and  was  now  discussing  the  measure. 

Groans  and  vituperative  yells  greeted  the  infor 
mation  that  Senator  Norton  was  speaking  on  the 
measure — against  it,  everyone  knew.  Thereafter 
came  no  bulletins  for  an  hour. 

Someone  in  the  vast  crowd  started  a  patriotic 
song,  and  the  music  swept  over  the  throng  and 
swelled  at  last  from  ten  thousand  throats.  One  by 
one  the  old  time  hymns  of  the  fathers,  rarely  sung 

408 


GENERAL  MACMAHON'S   PLEDGE 

of  late,  came  from  out  the  treasure-house  of  years 
and  rose  triumphant,  powerful,  thrilling,  on  the 
soft  air.  The  mighty  music  penetrated  even  to  the 
senate-chamber  and  caused  John  Norton  a  mo 
ment's  pause  in  his  speech  of  tremendous  invective 
against  the  ''lawless  element  that  surrounds  this 
capitol." 

At  last  came  an  announcement  that  stopped  the 
music  and  turned  the  voices  of  the  throng  into 
curses  and  revilements.  "The  Senate  rejects  the 
relief  bill  by  a  vote  of  80  to  18,  and  adjourns  until 
to-morrow,"  it  read. 

The  crowd  dispersed  slowly,  surrounding  the 
few  who  had  been  able  to  get  into  the  senate-cham 
ber,  in  the  feverish  desire  to  obtain  its  news  at  first 
hand.  From  all  came  the  same  reports :  John  Nor 
ton's  speech  was  the  overwhelming  feature  of  the 
Senate's  session.  It  had  been  masterly  in  its  in 
vective,  powerful  in  its  rugged  eloquence,  skilful  in 
its  appeal  to  the  spirit  of  conservatism.  It  had,  all 
acknowledged,  put  fresh  spirit  into  the  Senate  and 
caused  the  defeat  of  the  House  bill  by  the  great 
majority  announced. 

The  afternoon  papers  blazoned  the  speech  with 
overgrown  headings  and  at  full  length.  The  pero 
ration,  which  the  Spy  described  as  "the  final  reply 
of  law  and  order  to  anarchy,"  was  printed  in  black- 
faced  type  of  the  most  aggressive  description. 

"The  issue  is  clear  [Senator  Norton  had  said]. 
Is  a  so-called  congress  of  idle  vagabonds  to  awe 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  into  an  act  which 
will  destroy  the  rights  of 'the  business  men  of  this 
nation  to  sell  in  the  open  markets  of  the  world  what 
they  have  honestly  bought?  There  is  no  other  in 
terpretation,  and  no  amount  of  hysterical  prating 

409 


CW  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

about  the  rights  of  the  people  can  disguise  the  fact 
that  tyranny,  masquerading  as  liberty,  is  jeopard 
izing  the  security  of  the  nation  and  seeking  to 
trample  upon  the  prerogatives  of  Congress. 

"An  accidental  President,  posing  as  a  new 
savior  of  his  country,  and  acting  as  the  mouth 
piece  of  the  rabble,  commands  the  Senate.  This 
honorable  body,  respected  both  by  tradition  and 
by  the  opinion  of  the  conservative  elements  of  our 
country,  will  show  such  men  their  rightful  place. 
The  Senate  of  the  United  States  will  do  justice,  but 
it  cannot  be  coerced." 

That  evening,  in  answer  to  his  request,  several 
of  the  leaders  of  the  Senate  met  the  President  at 
the  White  House.  Senator  Norton  did  not  come, 
word  being  sent  that  he  was  again  ill  and  under 
the  doctor's  orders,  a  plea  that  did  not  impress 
Craig  very  much. 

Long  and  earnestly  he  labored  with  the  senators, 
pointing  out  to  them  as  eloquently  as  he  was  able 
the  splendor  of  the  opportunity  to  set  themselves 
right  before  the  people,  who,  after  all,  must  be  the 
real  rulers  of  the  nation.  But  he  soon  saw  that 
nothing  could  change  their  determination,  and  the 
interview  ended  with  the  deadlock  as  unshaken  as 
before. 

Then  came  the  delegation  from  the  United  Men 
of  America,  which  Craig  had  purposely  kept  in 
waiting  until  after  the  conference  with  the  senators. 

"Who  is  your  chairman,  gentlemen?"  asked  the 
President  when  the  men  had  filed  into  the  room. 

"I  am,  Mr.  President,"  said  Luke  Ford,  stepping 
forward. 

"What  are  you  instructed  to  ask?" 

"The  fulfilment  of  your  promise,"  was  the  im- 
410 


GENERAL   MACMAHON'S   PLEDGE 

compromising    reply.      The    others    nodded    ap 
proval. 

"Gentlemen,  I  have — you  know  what  I  have 
done  to-day." 

"Yes,  but—" 

''But  it  has  failed,  you  would  say.  I  have  but 
this  to  reply:  to-day  I  have  implored;  to-morrow 
I  shall  act.  Good-night,  gentlemen,  and  remem 
ber  that  public  sympathy,  which  alone  supports 
extreme  measures,  is  easily  forfeited.  See  to  it  that 
good  sense  and  good  order  prevail  in  these  trying 
times.  Good  night." 

For  some  time  Craig  sat  in  thought,  rapidly  re 
viewing  the  events  of  the  day.  Suddenly  he  arose 
and  touched  a  button.  The  clean-cut,  frank-faced 
Trent,  President  Burlingame's  secretary,  who  had 
shown  a  disposition  to  serve  the  new  executive 
faithfully  and  well,  answered  the  summons. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  is  it,  Mr.  Trent,"  said  Philip 
kindly,  "I  thought  you  had  retired." 

"No,  Mr.  President ;  I  believed  you  might  need 
me,"  was  the  reply. 

"I  shall  need  every  honest  man,  Mr.  Trent  .  .  . 
My  message  to  Gen.  MacMahon — was  it  deliv 
ered?" 

"He  is  already  in  waiting." 

"I  will  see  him  at  once." 

The  Lieutenant-General  of  the  army  was  a  short, 
thickset  man  with  a  florid  face  and  large  snow- 
white  moustachios  and  imperial.  As  Craig  gazed 
earnestly  at  his  frank  Celtic  countenance  he 
thought  he  saw  a  man  he  could  trust  to  the  utter 
most.  But  he  must  be  absolutely  certain  of  his 
ground,  and  the  best  way,  he  knew,  was  to  dispense 
with  circumlocution. 

411 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Be  seated,  General,"  he  said.  "Not  there — 
nearer  me,  please.  I  have  sent  for  you  because  I 
need  you.  To-morrow,  if  the  Senate  again  refuses 
to  concur  with  the  House  on  the  embargo  bill,  and 
also  persists  in  refusing  to  agree  with  the  House 
to  end  the  present  session  of  Congress  I  shall  ad 
journ  the  session  myself." 

He  paused  a  moment  to  note  the  effect  of  this 
radical  statement  on  the  bluff  old  soldier. 

"You  do  not  seem  surprised,"  he  added. 

"No.  I  expected  this  would  come.  President 
Burlingame — " 

"Pardon  me,  I  see  you  were  in  his  confidence." 

"'Yes,  sir." 

"And  he— and  I— are  right  ?" 

The  General's  gray  eyes  sparkled,  and  he  pulled 
his  white  imperial  vigorously.  "Indubitably,  sir," 
he  replied.  "The  constitution  is  quite  clear  that 
the  President  may  adjourn  Congress  to  such  time 
as  he  sees  fit  in  case  of  disagreement  between  the 
two  houses  as  to  time  of  adjournment." 

"I  shall  adjourn  the  Congress  to-morrow,"  said 
the  President,  solemnly. 

"And  act  meanwhile?" 

"And  act  meanwhile.  I  have  reason  to  expect 
resistance — forcible  resistance — together  with  at 
tempted  impeachment.  I  have  sent  for  you  to  ask 
your  position — the  position  of  the  army." 

The  General  rose  and  took  the  President's  hand 
in  his  with  a  hearty  warmth  that  was  as  reassuring 
as  his  words.  Simply,  quietly,  untheatrically  he 
gave  his  pledge,  and  Craig's  mind  was  at  rest  on 
one  point,  at  least. 

"The  army,  sir,  is  now,  as  ever,  at  the  command 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States." 

412 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

THE  AROUSING  OF  THE  TIGER. 

SECRETARY  TRENT  was  startled  and 
amazed  when  he  arrived  at  the  President's 
private  office  early  next  morning  to  find  Craig 
bent  over  his  desk  in  the  study  of  a  great  pile  of 
books  and  papers.  He  was  still  more  concerned 
when  he  saw  the  haggard  face  and  sunken  eyes 
that  were  turned  toward  him. 

"You — you  have  had  no  sleep?"  he  stammered. 

"No,  Mr.  Trent,  I  have  been  busy  with  the  au 
thorities,  as  you  see,"  he  replied  with  a  wan  smile. 
Then,  picking  up  a  newspaper  before  him :  "I 
have  also  just  been  reading  Senator  Norton's 
speech  again.  It  was  very  bitter,  Mr.  Trent." 

"Exceedingly  so,  sir." 

"But,"  exclaimed  the  President,  angrily,  rising 
and  crushing  the  offensive  print  in  his  hand,  "but 
false !  The  people  rule  in  this  country,  as  he  shall 
know." 

The  secretary  shook  his  head  as  he  watched  the 
retreating  figure  of  the  executive  out  of  sight. 

"A  terrible  strain — terrible,"  he  said,  pityingly. 
"And  what  will  come  of  it  ?" 

During  the  first  hour  of  the  session  of  the  Senate 
that  day  came  a  message  from  the  President  de 
claring  that  if  that  branch  could  not  concur  on  the 
embargo  bill  originating  in  the  House,  or  upon  the 
adjournment  desired  by  the  representatives,  the 

413 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

President,  by  the  power  vested  in  him  by  the  Con 
stitution,  would  adjourn  Congress  to  the  autumn. 

Stony  silence  marked  the  reception  of  this  state 
paper,  a  silence  broken  only  by  a  hyena-like  laugh 
from  one  of  the  rear  seats.  The  pickle-senator  had 
opened  his  mouth  in  the  chamber  at  last. 

The  Senate  as  a  body  treated  the  message  with 
equal,  if  less  demonstrative,  contempt. "  It 
promptly  defeated  reconsideration  of  the  House 
bill,  refused  to  fix  a  time  for  adjournment,  and  im 
peachment  proceedings  against  the  President  of 
the  United  States  for  "high  crimes  and  misde 
meanors"  were  begun. 

The  President  heard  the  news  without  a  sign  of 
emotion  of  any  sort.  His  answer  was  a  message 
declaring  Congress  adjourned  sine  die. 

The  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
promptly  dispersed  after  the  singing  of  the  old- 
time  traditional  doxology  started  by  the  press  men 
in  the  gallery.  The  shouts  of  the  people  outside 
told  them  of  the  popularity  of  their  act.  The  Sen 
ate,  to  intensify  its  spirit  of  bravado,  voted  at  four 
o'clock  to  take  a  recess  until  eight.  They  reck 
oned  without  their  host. 

When  the  hour  of  reconvening  arrived  the  sena 
tors  found  a  vast,  noisy,  jubilating  throng  packed 
about  the  capitol.  Jibes  and  hisses  and  even 
threats  there  were  in  abundance,  but  no  acts  of 
violence,  and  the  hated  law-makers  made  their  way 
to  the  building  with  no  great  difficulty. 

But  their  amazement  and  anger  knew  no 
bounds  when  they  found  that  every  entrance  to 
the  capitol  was  guarded  by  double  files  of  United 
States  troops,  and  that  no  man  was  allowed  to  pass 
without  a  permit.  And  as  Gen,  MacMahon  had 

414 


THE  AROUSING   OF   THE    TIGER 

taken  care  that  no  permits  should  be  granted, 
there  was  no  session  of  the  Senate  that  night. 

Already  the  newspaper  extras  were  being  sold 
by  tens  of  thousands  on  the  crowded  streets. 
They  all  contained  a  proclamation  by  the  Presi 
dent  issued  at  seven  o'clock. 

''This  is  not  martial  law,"  it  read,  "but  the  pro 
tection  of  the  rights  of  the  people  against  usurpa 
tion  by  a  Senate  that  respects  nothing  save  the 
greed  of  wealth.  The  people,  in  this  trying  hour, 
must  support  the  executive  loyally  and  quietly." 

The  effect  of  this  warning  against  possible  dis 
order  would  have  been  most  salutary,  for  the 
masses  already  honored  and  respected  their  new 
President.  But,  unfortunately,  the  same  papers 
contained  a  statement,  in  the  form  of  an  interview, 
from  Senator  John  P.  Norton,  which,  by  its  arro 
gance  and  studied  insults,  stirred  the  dark  pools  of 
hatred  and  discontent  anew. 

The  crowds  that  surged  and  flo\ved  in  ever-in 
creasing  density  through  the  streets  began  to  show 
signs  of  turbulance.  A  hostile  demonstration  was 
made  before  the  office  of  the  most  bitter  of  the 
newspaper  organs  of  the  senatorial  clique,  and 
only  the  hurried  arrival  of  a  strong  detachment  of 
police  saved  the  establishment  from  wreckage. 

The  chief  of  the  district  police,  although  he  had 
every  available  man  on  duty,  early  foresaw  that 
lie  could  not  control  the  crowds  that  were  invad 
ing  every  part  of  the  city  in  great  detached  bands, 
and  he  sent  a  message  to  President  Craig  asking 
for  troops  to  ensure  order.  The  President  de 
clined  to  act. 

'That  would  be  martial  law,"  he  sent  back  word. 
"It  would  incite  tumult,  and  its  effect  on  the  nation 

415 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

at  large  would  be  disastrous.  It  must  be  done,  if 
at  all,  only  as  a  last  resource." 

No  sooner  had  the  messenger  departed  than  a 
card  was  brought  to  Philip  bearing  the  name  of 
Stuyvesant  Lord,  to  be  followed  a  moment  later 
by  the  ex-postmaster  general  in  a  state  of  trepi 
dation  and  humility  marvelously  unlike  his  usual 
almost  brutal  brusqueness. 

"I  am  here,  Mr.  President,"  he  began,  "to  see 
what  can  be  done — to  see  what  we  can  do — to 
avert  the  calamity  that  threatens  the  established 
order  of  things.  Government  is  subverted;  busi 
ness  will  be  staggered,  and  the  whole  nation  will 
receive  a  terrible  blow  unless  a  halt  is  called  to 
this  unfortunate  strife." 

"Ah,"  replied  Craig,  with  a  touch  of  bitterness, 
"you  are  alive  now  to  the  effects  of  stagnation. 
When  it  affected  only  the  people,  you  did  not  care. 
Well,  what  do  you  propose  to  do?" 

"I  can  assure  you  that  the  Senate  will  reverse 
its  action,"  said  Lord,  flushing  deeply,  as  if  in 
shame  for  his  own  weakness  and  defeat.  He  had 
put  his  neck  beneath  the  feet  of  the  once-despised 
Philip  Craig,  and  he  felt  certain  that  the  obeisance 
would  win  the  clay,  distasteful  as  the  action  was. 

"There  is  no  Senate,"  replied  the  President. 

"We  will  pass  the  embargo  bill." 

"Who  is  'we'?" 

"The — the  Senate,"  stammered  the  dumb 
founded  suppliant. 

"There  is  no  Senate,  sir,"  replied  the  President, 
coldly.  "Your  mission  is  a  day  late.  You  ex 
pected,  I  assume,  that  I  would  meet  your  grovel 
ing  with  as  weak  a  surrender,  and  that  I  would 
convene  Congress  in  extraordinary  session.  I 

416 


THE  AROUSING   OF   THE   TIGER 

shall  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  The  real  representa 
tive  of  the  people  is  here" — he  drew  himself  up 
proudly  as  he  spoke  and  covered  Lord  with  a  gaze 
of  contempt.  "Fate  has  willed  in  miraculous  way 
that  I  should  act  for  the  people.  Rest  assured  I 
shall  not  neglect  my  duty.  To  reassemble  Con 
gress  now  would  be  pitiable  weakness  before  which 
I  and  the  people  would  be  forced  to  the  wall.  Tell 
those  who  sent  you  that  as  they  have  crossed  their 
Rubicon,  so  have  I  mine.  There  can  be  no 
retreat." 

As  the  man  who  had  so  often  covertly  sneered 
at  and  insulted  him  left  his  presence,  with  bowed 
head  and  dejected  step,  Philip  Craig  threw  back 
his  head  and  laughed  aloud. 

"It  is  destiny — destiny,"  he  exclaimed,  "and 
how  dare  I  thwart  it  ?" 

"What  is  it,  Mr.  Trent?"  he  asked,  as  his  pri 
vate  secretary  entered  the  room  and  stood  before 
his  desk. 

"The  chief  of  police  wishes  to  see  you  on  a  mat 
ter  of  great  moment,  Mr.  President." 

"Very  well." 

The  chief  had  come  to  plead  for  soldiers. 

"I  appeal  to  you,  Mr.  President,  because  the 
need  is  urgent,"  he  said.  "Already  incendiary 
placards  have  been  posted  up  by  some  anarchistic 
scoundrels,  and  they  have  hanged  Senator  Norton 
in  effigy  in  front  of  the  War  building.  There's 
going  to  be  great  trouble  before  the  night  is  over, 
as  sure  as  we  both  live.  I  need,  I  must  have 
troops." 

"I  think  you  overestimate  the  seriousness  of  the 
situation,  Chief,"  replied  the  President  confidently. 

417 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"However,  in  order  that  there  may  be  no  mistake, 
I  am  going  out  to  see  for  myself." 

"Your  exclaimed  the  officer,  aghast.  "You 
mix  in  all  this  disorder?  Think  of  the  danger,  Mr. 
President." 

"Danger?  From  my  own  people?"  returned 
Philip  scornfully. 

"Ah,  Mr.  President,  there  are  many  here  in 
Washington  to-night  who  are,  unfortunately,  not 
your  people.  They  are  firebrands  who  may  have 
power  to  set  the  whole  citizenry  ablaze." 

"Nevertheless,  I  am  going.  I  shall  take  care 
that  I  am  not  recognized.  There  need  be  no  fear 
whatever." 

"Shall  I  detail  a  guard — " 

"What,  and  make  a  real  danger?  No,  sir,  I  go 
alone.  If  troops  are  needed,  I  will  see  that  they 
are  furnished.  Good  night." 

In  a  long  coat  and  slouch  hat  the  President 
went  forth  a  few  minutes  later.  Not  far  from  the 
White  House  he  found  a  crowd  on  the  street,  har 
angued  by  a  roaring  orator  who  urged  his  hearers 
to  "action"  of  some  sort  against  the  aristocrats. 

The  few  all  at  once  grew  to  many  by  the  magic 
accretions  of  the  night,  and  the  speaker  was  for 
gotten  as  the  combined  force  swept  along, 
shouting,  surging,  threatening,  bound  for  some 
unknown  point  to  wreak  some  unknown  ven 
geance  for  their  wrongs.  As  yet  there  was  no 
guiding  spirit  to  unify  the  fiery  elements  of  unrest ; 
as  yet  the  crowd  was  as  likely  to  be  disrupted  by  a 
laugh  or  a  rough  and  tumble  between  two  of  its 
component  parts,  as  to  become  that  senseless 
engine  of  destruction,  a  mob,  sympathizing  with 
out  thought,  condemning  without  reason. 

418 


THE   AROUSING   OF    THE    TIGER 

The  President  was  borne  along  by  the  tremen 
dous  momentum  of  excited  humanity,  in  spite  of 
his  attempts  to  fall  back,  that  he  might  observe, 
without  participating  in,  the  uproar.  As  well  try 
to  stem  an  avalanche  with  a  plough.  On  he  went 
into  the  centre  of  a  struggling,  swaying,  cursing, 
jeering  mass  of  men,  using  every  endeavor  to 
preserve  his  incognito,  fearing  lest  an  accidental 
up-flaring  of  his  hat  brim  might  show  his  face  to 
someone  who  would  know  it. 

As  the  human  stream  debouched  into  an  open 
square,  it  struck  fairly  into  the  middle  of  another 
immense  phalanx  and  was  quickly  swallowed  up 
in  its  black  maw.  Here,  the  President  noted, 
many  of  the  shops  had  erected  heavy  plank  bar 
ricades  in  front  of  their  windows,  while  broken 
glass  and  disordered  goods  showed  that  others  had 
already  been  the  innocent  victims  of  violence. 

Squads  of  police  lined  the  curbstones  and  kept 
the  crowd  in  the  street  by  the  sheer  force  of  locust- 
wood,  as  many  a  bruised  and  battered  head  bore 
witness. 

But  this  new  aggregation  of  unrest,  the  Presi 
dent  saw,  differed  from  the  old  in  that  it  seemed 
to  be  moved  and  directed  by  a  master.  Some 
where  in  the  swirling  throng  there  was  a  leader 
strong  enough  to  be  obeyed,  magnetic  enough  to 
be  followed,  for  all  at  once  the  mass  began  to  start 
forward,  and  Craig  found  that  the  head  of  what 
was  now  a  howling  and  riotous  procession  was  not 
far  from  himself. 

In  the  lead  strode  a  tall  man  with  flowing  black 
coat,  long  dark  hair  and  a  broad  soft  hat.  Beside 
him  ran  a  screaming,  red-faced  woman  waving  a 

419 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

red  silk  handkerchief  that  had  been  tied  to  a  slim 
umbrella. 

"Luke  Ford !" 

The  name  came  from  the  President's  mouth 
involuntarily.  In  the  shock  and  horror  of  the 
discovery  that  his  old  associate  was  the  guiding 
spirit  of  a  mob  that  might  become  a  band  of 
criminals  before  the  night  was  over,  he  forgot 
all  caution  and  strove  with  all  his  might  to  force 
his  way  to  the  front.  But  he  was  met  by  sturdy 
shoulders  and  angry  gro\vls,  and  he  made  no  prog 
ress  whatever,  save  that  of  keeping  step  perforce 
to  the  steady  tramp  of  heavy  feet. 

All  at  once  the  virago  in  the  lead  turned  and 
shouted  to  those  just  behind : 

"Norton!  He's  the  real  villain.  Let's  go  and 
see  him!" 

The  rest  took  up  the  savage  cry. 

"To  Norton's!" 

"He's  hiding;  let's  smoke  him  out." 

"To  the  Norton  palace!" 

"We'll  have  no  palaces !" 

And  so  throughout  the  whole  of  the  mob.  The 
tiger  was  awakened,  and  there  was  a  definite  prey 
on  which  to  spring.  On,  with  ever-increasing 
speed,  went  the  throng,  stones,  sticks  and  pistols 
appearing  as  by  sudden  understanding. 

On  the  way  was  an  oil  warehouse,  overwhelm 
ingly  tempting  in  its  suggestion  and  its  weakness. 
With  a  mighty  crash  its  door  was  burst  open,  and 
Ford  and  a  few  others  rushed  in  and  rolled  many 
barrels  into  the  streets.  In  an  instant  they  were 
on  the  shoulders  of  strong  men  and  the  terrible 
march  was  resumed. 

Sick  at  heart  as  he  realized  the  intent  of  the 
420 


THE  AROUSING   OF   THE    TIGER 

crowd,  Craig  made  one  desperate  effort  to  clear 
himself.  Using  every  ounce  of  strength  there  was 
in  him,  and  heedless  of  the  curses  and  blows  that 
fell  upon  him,  he  managed  to  reach  the  outer  edge 
of  the  procession  at  a  side  street  and  escape  into 
obscurity. 

With  but  one  impulse  in  his  breast,  he  rushed  on 
by  a  roundabout  way  to  the  Norton  stables,  which 
he  knew  were  in  the  rear  of  the  house.  He  knew, 
too,  that  Norton  was  a  very  sick  man,  for  he  had 
been  told  that  there  had  been  a  complete  collapse 
resulting  from  the  strain  of  the  Senate  speech.  It 
was  an  old  man,  ill  almost  unto  death,  that  the 
rage  of  the  mob  desired  as  a  sacrifice.  It  was  but 
common  humanity  to  wish  to  save  him. 

At  the  stables  he  found  old  Bayles  and 
"Muggsy"  just  preparing  to  retire  for  the  night. 
These  worthies  were  astonished  beyond  measure  at 
the  apparition  of  the  President,  pale  and  breathing 
hard  from  his  great  exertions.  They  were  still 
more  astounded  at  his  greeting. 

"Do  you  value  your  master's  life?"  he  ex 
claimed. 

Already  the  cries  of  the  avenging  host  were 
heard  in  the  street  before  the  house. 

"Me  an'  Doc' — "  began  "Muggsy,"  whom  no 
excitement  could  quite  shake  from  his  accustomed 
formula,  but  his  words  were  cut  off  in  a  twinkling. 

"Harness  your  best  horses  in  a  carriage,  then, 
without  an  instant's  delay.  You,  Bayles,  go  and 
get  the  Nortons;  tell  them  they  must  fly  for  their 
lives,  that  a  conveyance  is  waiting  for  them  here." 

The  old  man  hobbled  off  with  surprising  rapid 
ity,  while  Craig  helped  "Muggsy"  hitch  the  horses 
to  the  pole. 

421 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

Now  a  terrific  crashing  of  stone  and  wood  on 
iron  was  heard  as  the  mob  began  battering  at  the 
gates;  then  came  the  dull  sound  of  their  fall.  A 
flare  of  light  cast  its  evil  pallor  on  the  stable  roof; 
cries  of  a  thousand  men  mingled  in  one  ominous 
yell  and  still  no  one  came  from  the  house,  save  the 
servants,  who,  one  by  one,  rushed  past  panic- 
stricken  and  disappeared  into  the  by-street. 

After  what  seemed  an  eternity  to  Philip's  over 
wrought  nerves,  he  saw  Norton,  helped  by  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Bentley  and  Mrs.  Norton,  totter  down 
the  steps  and  into  the  courtyard.  A  second 
feminine  figure,  the  nurse,  he  presumed,  came  with 
them,  and  as  he  stepped  into  an  angle  of  the  wall, 
all  entered  the  carnage.  "Muggsy"  Bayles  seized 
the  reins  and  sprang  to  the  box.  "Doc"  followed 
in  laborious  fashion,  cursing  himself  for  his  own 
rheumatic  slowness. 

"Where  shall  we  drive  to,  sir?"  asked  the  junior 
stableman. 

"To — to — the  White  House,"  replied  Craig. 
"They  will  be  safe  enough  there,"  he  added  below 
his  breath.  There  was  a  smart  chirrup  from 
"Muggsy,"  a  clattering  of  hoofs  on  the  smooth 
asphalt,  a  grinding  of  wheels  as  they  turned  a  cor 
ner  sharply,  and  the  party  dashed  to  safety. 

Philip  Craig  walked  slowly  away  from  the 
scene  of  riot  and  destruction ;  there  was  no 
need  for  hurry  now,  and  the  reaction  was  great. 
As  he  neared  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  he  turned  and 
looked  back.  The  rich  glow  of  mounting  flames 
illumined  the  sky,  paling  all  other  lights  into  in 
significance.  He  almost  fancied  he  could  hear  the 
crackling  of  John  Norton's  treasures  of  luxury 
and  art,  as  they  were  sent  to  their  destruction.  All 

422 


THE   AROUSING   OF   THE    TIGER 

his  hope,  his  courage,  his  faith  left  him  for  the 
moment,  as  he  thought  of  the  work  of  those  who 
had  once  listened  to  and  obeyed  his  words  of 
counsel. 

"And  they  will  say  that  I — I  am  responsible," 
he  cried,  in  the  agony  of  despair. 


423 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

DESPOT  OR  MARTYR? 

THE  President  returned  to  the  White  House 
soon  after  midnight,  his  incognito  preserved, 
but  his  peace  of  mind  shattered  and  his  phys 
ical  being  wearied  beyond  expression.  The  ser 
vant  who  admitted  him  at  a  side  entrance  nudged 
the  secret  service  man  on  guard  significantly. 

"Looks  as  if  he'd  aged  ten  years  in  two  hours," 
was  his  remark. 

"No  wonder,  man,"  said  the  officer.  "I  don't 
believe  any  President  since  good  old  Abe  Lincoln 
has  had  such  a  time  of  it.  It's  a  wonder  he's  sane, 
that's  what." 

Philip  was  met  in  the  ante-room  of  his  private 
office  by  Secretary  Trent;  even  that  usually  cool 
and  common-sense  functionary  seemed  nervous 
and  depressed. 

"Several  are  waiting  to  see  you,  Mr.  President," 
he  said.  "Gen.  MacMahon  and — others." 

"Oh,  I  can't — well,  in  five  minutes  I  will  see  the 
General." 

With  his  hand  pressed  to  his  forehead,  which 
throbbed  and  ached  strangely,  he  went  to  a  win 
dow,  drew  aside  the  curtain  and  looked  out  into 
the  night.  The  ruddy  glare  in  the  sky  only  inten 
sified  his  wretchedness. 

"Oh,  God,  that  they — they  could  do  this,"  he 

424 


DESPOT   OR   MARTYR 

muttered.     He  sank  into  a  chair  and  bowed  his 
head  upon  the  window-sill. 

So  General  MacMahon  found  him,  an  object  elo 
quent  of  sorrow  and  disappointment. 

"Pardon  me,  Mr.  President,"  he  began  at  last 
very  gently.     "But  Mr.  Trent  said- 
Craig  raised  himself  wearily  and  faced  the  old 
soldier  with  a  faint  smile. 

"Yes,  General.     Pray  sit  down." 

"Is  there  time  for  that?"  asked  the  other  signifi 
cantly,  raising  an  arm  toward  the  reddened  sky. 

The  President  felt  the  kindly  rebuke  he  could 
not  resent. 

"You  wish?"  he  asked. 

"Your  orders,  sir." 

"Troops  will  be  needed?" 

"I  think  so.  The — the  tumult  is  spreading." 
It  had  been  upon  his  tongue  to  say  "riot,"  but  a 
glance  at  the  sorrowful  face  before  him  changed 
the  word.  "The  people  are  much  excited." 

"How  soon  can  you  act?" 

"At  once.  The  Third  Cavalry  and  two  regi 
ments  of  infantry  are  on  this  side  of  the  river, 
and  I  am  in  constant  telephonic  communication." 

"Act,  then,  General,"  said  the  President  with  a 
sigh.  "I  rely  upon  you  that  order  be  restored 
without  the  spilling  of  a  drop  of  blood,  if  that  be 
possible." 

The  soldier's  face  grew  very  grave.  But  what 
ever  his  personal  opinion,  he  could  not  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  do  otherwise  than  lighten  the  burden  of 
the  executive. 

"I  hope,  nay,  I  trust,  that  it  is  possible,"  he 
said  calmly. 

"Heaven  grant  it.    Now  go,  General,  go." 
425 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

MacMahon  saluted,  turned  on  his  heel  and 
walked  with  alert  step  from  the  room.  With  him 
fled  the  respite  of  better  cheer  that  his  fine  person 
ality  had  brought  into  the  room.  With  feet  that 
seemed  leaden  clogs,  Philip  began  to  pace  the 
apartment,  talking  aloud  the  while,  as  to  another 
presence. 

"The  pity  of  it,"  he  exclaimed,  "that  my  first 
show  of  force  must  be  directed  at — at  my  own  peo 
ple.  No,  not  my  own  people,"  he  corrected  him 
self  fiercely.  "Ford?  Yes,  and  some  other  hot 
heads,  but  for  the  most  part  the  dregs  of  humanity. 
The  cause  must  not,  shall  not  suffer  for  the  turbu 
lence  of  a  few." 

A  tap  at  the  door,  and  Mr.  Trent  entered. 

"WTill  you  see  the  Secretary — I  mean  Mr. 
Pratt?"  he  asked. 

"On  what  business?"  said  the  President  almost 
querulously.  He  was  sick  unto  death  of  the  eter 
nal  breaking  in  upon  him.  Would  he  never  again 
have  a  moment's  rest?  Or  any  sleep  to-night? 
Sleep!  He  and  that  gracious  gift  of  nature  had 
parted  company  of  late.  Some  day — but  Trent's 
voice  broke  in. 

"He  asked  me  to  say  to  you  that  his  errand  was 
of  the  highest  possible  import  to  the  nation." 

"Well,  then,  I  will  see  him,  but  in  your  presence, 
Trent,  if  you  please.  You  spoke  of  others.  Who 
are  they? 

The  Secretary  consulted  a  little  card. 

"Rev.  Mr.  Bentley  and  a  lady — of  the  party 
that  came  in  a  carriage  an  hour  ago  with  a  message 
from  you." 

Wondering  dully  why  he  had  not  thought  of 
them  before,  Philip  replied :  "Ah,  yes.  When  you 

426 


DESPOT   OR   MARTYR 

return,  bring  Mr.  Bentley  and  the  lady  with  you; 
it  is  Norton's  wife,  Trent.  Think  of  me  giving 
sanctuary  to  the  mob-hated  John  Peter." 

He  laughed,  and  the  sound  jarred  on  the  secre 
tary.  He  had  conceived  a  warm  liking  for  his 
chief. 

"By  the  way,  where  is  Norton?"  asked  Craig, 
surprised  to  find  himself  caring  even  for  the  where 
abouts  of  the  man. 

"In  the  blue  suite,  and  I  thought  you  would 
wish  me  to  notify  his  physician." 

"He  is  ill,  then?" 

"In  mind,  yes.  There  was  a  second  stroke  of 
paralysis  on  his  way  home  after  the  speech  in  the 
Senate.  And  I  thought  his  own  physician,  who 
had  just  left  him  before  this  last  excitement, 
should — " 

"You  acted  wisely.  Now  admit  Mr.  Pratt. 
You  and  the  others  come  with  him  and  remain 
there."  He  pointed  to  an  alcove  partially  screened 
by  a  curtain  of  magnificent  tapestry.  There  must 
be  witnesses  to  this  interview. 

The  President  sat  down  at  his  table,  ready  for 
what  might  come.  He  knew  the  wonderful  craft 
of  the  ex-secretary  of  state,  and  were  it  to  be  a 
match  of  wits  against  wits  he  would  have  expected 
defeat.  But  this  was  to  be  a  different  contest. 
Power  of  conviction,  sense  of  right  would  prevail 
against  all  the  arts  in  the  world,  he  felt. 

In  the  dim  shadows  that  engulfed  the  room  out 
side  the  narrow  circle  of  his  green-shaded  reading 
lamp,  Craig  saw  three  figures  enter  and  pass  into 
the  alcove :  Trent's  and  that  of  a  short,  ungainly 
man  were  two.  The  third  was  that  of  a  woman. 
The  fourth,  following  just  behind,  was  tall,  slender, 

427 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

cat-like  in  its  gliding  footsteps.  It  stopped  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  table.  There  were  no 
formalities. 

"I  have  come,  Mr.  Craig,"  said  Pratt,  "in  the 
name  of  our  common  country." 

"To  what  end,  sir?" 

"To  the  end,"  replied  the  ex-secretary,  curling 
his  lean  forefinger  around  the  edge  of  the  desk, 
"to  the  end  that  the  liberties  of  this  nation  may 
not  be  imperiled;  to  avert  bloodshed  and  a  reign 
of  terror;  to  make  impossible  such  scenes  as  to 
night  pollute  the  streets  of  Washington." 

"I  will  gladly  join  hands  with  you,  although  I 
fear  you  exaggerate  somewhat." 

"Exaggerate?"  Pratt  rose  and  strode  to  the 
window,  holding  back  the  curtain.  Still  that  dam 
ning  glow,  although  growing  fainter  with  every 
moment.  "Is  that  exaggeration?" 

The  President  dashed  his  hand  across  his  fore 
head  as  if  in  pain. 

"I  know,"  he  said  bitterly,  "I  was  there." 

The  lean  politician  looked  at  Craig  with  intense 
curiosity.  What  was  this  strange  man — fanatic, 
fool,  or  hero?  So  lost  in  speculation  was  he  that 
for  once  he  forgot  to  pick  up  the  thread  of  conver 
sation. 

"Well?" 

The  President's  voice  recalled  him  to  the  matter 
in  hand. 

"Washington  is  not  alone,"  he  said  earnestly. 
"New  York  is  on  the  verge  of  rioting.  That  has 
been  averted  to-night  only  by  prompt  work  by  the 
police.  The  militia  has  been  ordered  out,  and 
martial  law  proclaimed.  In  Chicago — 

"Enough,  sir,"  broke  in  the  President  sternly. 
428 


DESPOT   OR   MARTYR 

"If  neglect  of  the  people  has  bred  disorder,  it  is  not 
the  fault  of  the  cause  I  represented  before  destiny, 
fate,  mischance — call  it  what  you  will — made  me 
the  representative  of  all  the  people." 

"Fanatic,  surely,"  thought  Pratt,  "and  very 
likely  all  the  rest  besides." 

"You  say,"  continued  Craig,  "that  you  come  to 
prevent  such  perils  as  you  foresee.  What  is  your 
mission  to  me?" 

"It  is  simple.  Public  confidence  and  quiet  will 
return  only  when  Congress  resumes  its  sessions 
peaceably.  We  ask  that  it  be  called  in  extraordi 
nary  session  to-morrow." 

"With  what  understanding?" 

The  ex-secretary  fixed  his  cold  and  penetrating 
eyes  on  the  pale  face  across  the  table,  and  spoke 
with  immense  deliberation. 

"That  the  Senate  will  pass  the  foodstuffs  em 
bargo  bill." 

"I  have  that  assurance?  " 

"Yes,  on  one  condition." 

"Ah,  a  condition."  Craig  raised  his  head  with  a 
quick  gesture  of  expectancy.  "And  the  condition 
is?" 

"Well,"  said  Pratt,  suavely,  "of  course  it  will  be 
— well,  impossible  for  a  President  created  under 
such  circumstances  to — " 

"Come  to  the  point,  sir,"  exclaimed  Craig,  with 
a  sarcastic  smile.  "It  ought  not  to  be  so  very  dif 
ficult.  You  demand  my  resignation." 

"Well,  I  suppose  that  is—" 

"And  your  alternative?" 

"If  you  do  not  call  the  session?" 

The  President  bowed. 

"We  shall  meet  in  another  city — the  House  as 
429 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

well,  for  the  disorder  has  shown  the  majority  of  its 
members  their  mistake — and  the  Senate  will — " 

"Impeach  me?" 

Pratt  signified  an  affirmative. 

"And  what  if  I  prevent  your  session — disperse 
the  Congress  by  force?" 

"Then,  sir,"  returned  the  ex-secretary,  his  voice 
quivering  with  suppressed  anger,  "it  will  be  force 
against  force,  and  you  will  be  proceeded  against 
as  a  dictator." 

"A  dictator!"  Craig  repeated  the  words  in  a 
profound  whisper,  as  of  a  man  communing  with 
his  own  nature.  The  portrait  of  another  president, 
whom  his  enemies  had  accused  of  seeking  for  ab 
solute  power,  caught  his  gaze,  and  he  stared  at  the 
rugged  face  with  a  strange  smile.  "Well,  why 
not?"  he  thought.  "If  I  agreed  to  this  proposal,  I 
would  have  failed,  the  cause  would  be  lost,  and 
Weakerdom  would  be — Weakerdom  still.  Shall  it 
be  defeat,  or — " 

"Mr.  Pratt,"  he  burst  forth  suddenly,  in  a  voice 
that  made  his  visitor  start  involuntarily,  skilled  old 
diplomat  that  he  was,  "this  is  my  answer.  Con 
gress  shall  not  meet,  in  Washington  or  elsewhere, 
if  the  army — the  army  that  is  in  sympathy  with, 
that  belongs  to  the  cause,  that  belongs  to  me  as 
the  representative  of  the  cause — can  prevent  it. 
If  you  proceed  with  the  impeachment  farce,  I  shall 
order  the  arrest  of  its  advocates  as  traitors." 

Pratt  rose  to  his  full  height,  impressive  from  its 
very  gauntness,  and  shook  his  bony  hand  at 
Philip's  face. 

"That  is  anarchy,  sir." 

"Perhaps,"  exclaimed  the  President,  rising  in 
turn  and  confronting  his  accuser  without  flinching, 

430 


DESPOT    OR   MARTYR 

"but  there  is  sometimes  more  anarchy  in  law  than 
in  its  overriding.  Up  to  now  I  have  tried  to  guide 
the  law  to  secure  the  rights  of  the  people.  As  you 
and  your  associates  act,  so  shall  I.  I  shall  prevail 
as  President,  if  I  can,  as  a  man  of  the  people,  for 
the  people — as  dictator,  if  I  must." 

The  eloquence  that  sincerity  lent  his  voice  and 
the  imperious  gesture  toward  the  door  moved 
Pratt  more  than  he  would  have  liked  to  confess. 
And  he,  whose  boast  it  was  that  no  man  could 
sway  his  sentiment,  turned  as  he  went  and  bowed 
with  respect. 

"Revolution,  perhaps,"  he  muttered  on  his  way 
to  the  street,  "but  it  will  not  endure  long,  and  he 
will  be  buried  in  the  ruins  of  his  good  intent." 

The  President  sat  down,  and  leaned  back  his 
head,  his  eyes  closed  in  forgetfulness  that  others 
were  in  the  room.  Only  the  great  thrilling  fact 
of  his  decision,  of  his  avowed  willingness  to  wield 
the  sceptre  of  unlimited  might,  held  any  reality  for 
him.  The  golden  glory  of  a  future  of  vast  useful 
ness,  unmatched,  perhaps,  by  that  of  any  man  the 
world  had  yet  seen,  seemed  to  irradiate  his  mental 
horizon  and  bear  him  far  from  the  black  visions 
of  the  night. 

"Philip." 

Back  from  the  region  of  phantasy  came  the  soul 
of  the  President  at  the  sound  of  that  tender  voice, 
thrilling  with  pity  in  the  old-remembered  way. 
Yes,  there  stood  Adoniram  Bentley  before  him, 
bending  upon  him  that  strange  gaze  of  half  mys 
ticism,  half  compassion  that  so  often  had  been 
given  to  others. 

"Does  he  think  me  innocent  or  guilty?"  thought 
Philip. 

431 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

There  was  no  answer  in  the  warm  hand-clasp 
from  the  little  clergyman,  for  that  would  have 
been  vouchsafed  to  the  worst  of  criminals.  Philip 
would  have  spoken,  but  that  Mr.  Bentley  released 
his  hand  and  pointed  toward  the  alcove. 

"She — is  waiting — to  see  and  thank  you,"  he 
said,  and  stole  quietly  from  the  room. 

Craig  went  to  the  alcove  and  clutched  the  costly 
tapestry  with  a  strong  grip.  Here  was  to  come 
the  most  intimate,  the  most  painful  part  of  the 
night's  experiences. 

"Mrs.  Norton,"  he  said,  as  firmly  as  he  was  able. 

The  heavy  curtain  rustled  and  a  figure  came 
forth,  not — not  the  form  of  one  to  whom  age  is 
already  beckoning,  but  that  of  a  lithe  and  splendid 
creature  in  the  rich  flush  of  womanhood.  Across 
the  sea  of  the  years,  brought  together  by  the 
waves  of  destiny,  Philip  Craig  and  Helen  Norton 
were  once  more  near  enough  to  touch  one  an 
other. 

The  man  was  the  first  to  speak. 

"Helen!  You?  I — thought  you  were  at  the 
hospital." 

"You  knew,  then  ?"  with  a  sad  little  smile. 

"And  you — "  disregarding  her  question — "yon 
were — you  lived  through  that — horror?"  He 
turned  his  head  toward  the  window,  where  now 
only  a  faint  radiance  could  be  seen.  Helen  in 
clined  her  head  ever  so  gently. 

"I  thank  you  for  your  kindness  to — to  my 
mother,"  she  said.  It  was  the  only  word  possible, 
although  he  knew  that  another,  a  broken,  helpless 
man  was  in  her  thought. 

"I  only  did  what  a  man  should,"  he  answered 
gravely.  No  taint  of  heroics  could  he  endure  for 


DESPOT   OR   MARTYR 

a  moment.  A  long  silence  brooded  over  them. 
Again  Philip's  voice  was  the  one  to  break  the 
pause. 

"Helen?" 

"Yes,"  she  whispered. 

"Strange  fate,  to  bring  us  together  again, — like 
this.  It  must  be  for  a  purpose."  Another  lapse 
into  stillness.  Then,  with  almost  startling  sudden 
ness,  he  exclaimed : — 

"You  have  heard  all,  of  course?" 

She  nodded  assent. 

"Was  I— am  I— right?" 

"Your  conscience  must  answer  that,"  she  re 
plied  gently. 

"Is  conscience  a  safe  guide,  I  wonder?"  he  said 

musingly.  "Years  ago  I  thought  so,  Helen,  when 
I " 

"When  you  left  my  father,"  she  finished  for  him. 
"When  you  wrote  the  explanation  I  did  not  read." 

"Yes,  but  how—" 

"I  read  it  years  after." 

"And  then?" 

"Then  I  knew  how  you  had  been  wronged." 

"Helen !"  There  was  a  note  of  tremulous  joy  in 
his  voice,  a  tone  that  had  been  a  stranger  to  him 
since  the  long  buried  past. 

"Then  the  victory  was  with  the  man — my  father 
— who  now  lies  stricken  as  a  guest  under  this, 
your  roof.  Now  the  triumph  is  yours.  I  was 
proud  of  you  in  after  years  when  I  knew  of  your 
defeat." 

"Are  you  proud  of  me  in  victory?"  he  asked 
wistfully.  "Not  over  your  father,"  as  he  saw  a 
shadow  over  the  beautiful  face,  "no,  not  that.  I 
have  no  fight  with  him,  but  only  with  the  cause 

433 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

he,  with  others,  represents.     Helen,  are  you  proud 
of  me  now  ?" 

He  stepped  forward  to  receive  her  answer,  a 
great  light  of  hope  upon  his  careworn  face,  but 
before  she  could  speak,  Trent,  the  secretary,  was 
in  the  room,  with  a  murmured  apology. 

"I  thought  you  were  alone,  Mr.  President,"  he 
said.  "I  have  a  message  from  Gen.  MacMahon 
marked  'urgent'.  "  And  he  handed  Craig  a  sealed 
envelope. 

As  Helen  walked  toward  the  door,  Philip  fol 
lowed  with  a  look  of  enquiry.  It  seemed  impossi 
ble  that  she  should  leave  him  until  she  had  given 
him  either  encouragement  or — .  Well,  better 
condemnation  than  uncertainty  on  such  a  night  as 
this. 

"I  must  go  to  my  mother,"  she  said  simply.  He 
opened  the  door,  but  took  her  hand  for  a  moment 
and  detained  her  with  gentle  clasp. 

"One  word,  Helen,"  he  implored.  "Do  you 
approve?" 

Once  more  she  turned  on  him  her  strange,  sadly 
sweet  smile. 

"When  your  conscience  approves,  I  shall  ap 
prove,  now — as  always." 

Her  parting  look  haunted  him.  In  it  he  read 
the  whole  enigma  of  life,  the  unanswered  and  the 
unanswerable  problems  of  heart  and  soul.  Yet 
were  they  unanswerable  ?  There  was  one  solution. 
Dared  he — ?  A  rustle  from  the  envelope  he  held 
tightly  in  his  hand  brought  back  his  wandering 
mind. 

"Gen.  MacMahon  reports  the  city  quiet  every 
where,  and  no  lives  sacrificed,"  he  said  to  Trent, 
as  he  read  the  message. 

434 


DESPOT   OR   MARTYR 

"Thank  God  for  that,"  replied  the  secretary 
fervently,  and  the  earnestness  of  the  man  who 
had  hitherto  seemed  almost  an  automaton,  sur 
prised  the  President  greatly. 

"The  General  asks  my  orders  for  the  day,  Trent. 
Is  there  a  messenger  waiting?" 

"Yes,  an  orderly." 

"Send  a  request  that  the  General  come  to  me  at 
daybreak,"  said  the  President  wearily.  "No,  I  shall 
not  need  you  again.  You  must  be  worn  out. 
Good  night." 

"Good  night,  Mr.  President." 

"One  moment,  Mr.  Trent.  Has  my  father 
retired?" 

"I  think  not.  He  was  in  the  private  library  a 
half  hour  ago." 

"Very  well,  I  will  go  to  him  there." 

Trent  saw  the  President  shiver  slightly,  and 
noted,  with  some  apprehension,  that  his  face  had 
suddenly  become  flushed  as  with  fever.  "A  bad 
combination,"  he  thought. 

"You  are  cold,"  he  said.  "It's  raining,  and  I'm 
afraid  you'll  find  the  library  damp.  Had  I  not 
better  order  a  fire  made?" 

"Thank  you,  no.     Good  night." 

As  the  President  ascended  the  stairs  slowly, 
Trent  looked  after  him,  his  brows  knitted  with 
deep  thought.  What  was  this  strange  character, 
he  wondered,  despot  or  martyr?  Champion  of  the 
people,  or  a  victim  of  colossal  self-esteem?  He 
fell  into  fitful  sleep  with  the  question  still 
unanswered. 


435 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 
"ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT." 

AS  the  President  entered  the  library,  which 
was  in  a  sad  state  of  disorder  by  reason  of 
the  half-emptied  boxes  of  papers  and  books 
he  had  sent  over  from  his  apartments,  he  found 
his  father  reading  and  half  nodding  in  a  great 
leathern  chair. 

The  old  man  rose  with  a  start,  and  the  volume 
fell  from  his  hands  to  the  floor.  He  came  forward 
and  grasped  Philip  affectionately  by  the  shoulders. 
Then  he  held  him  at  arm's  length  and  gazed  earn 
estly  at  the  anxious  face. 

"My  son,  my  son,"  he  exclaimed.  "An'  is  a 
weel  wi'  ye  in  these  sair  trooblous  times?" 

"Yes,  father,  as  well  as  I  could  expect."  Again 
Philip  shivered.  He  felt  a  curious  sense  of  cold 
ness  which  surprised  and  annoyed  him. 

"Ye're  cauld,"  exclaimed  Angus. 

"It's  chilly  here.  The  window  is  open.  No,  sit 
down,  please.  I'll  close  it." 

He  went  to  the  casement  and  looked  out,  as  if 
for  tidings  of  the  night. 

"The  sky  is  dark  again,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"The  flames  have  been  quenched  by  the  rain,  to 
break  forth  again — when?  Where?" 

"It  is  cold  here,"  he  said  again,  turning  to  his 
father.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  he  noted  the  lit- 

436 


"ON   SATAN'S   MOUNT" 

tered  appearance  of  the  room.    "Why,  father,  what 
have  you  been  doing?" 

"Putting  the  bukes  in  poseetion,  that's  a';  the 
dear  bukes,"  replied  Angus,  bending  over  his 
treasures  and  stroking  their  backs  as  tenderly  as 
if  they  were  sentient  things. 

"You  never  could  bear  to  have  anyone  else  touch 
them,"  said  Philip,  with  a  smile  at  the  old-time 
jealousy,  "not  even  me.  Now  you'd  better  bundle 
off  to  bed,  like  a  good  father." 

Angus  shook  his  gray  head  decisively. 

"Na,  Philip,  not  yet.  I  want  tae — tae  talk  wi' 
ye,  tae  hear — "  His  voice  quivered  with  anxiety, 
and  his  tongue  refused  to  conclude  the  sentence. 
To  hide  his  emotion  he  made  a  great  ado  about 
wiping  his  spectacles  and  replacing  them  in  exact 
position. 

"Well,  have  your  own  way,"  returned  the  son 
kindly.  "You  always  were  masterful,  you  know. 
I'll  make  a  little  fire  with  these  box  covers  and 
paper." 

He  busied  himself  for  a  minute  or  two  collecting 
the  rubbish  and  placing  it  in  the  grate,  while  the 
keen  eyes  of  old  Angus  watched  every  movement 
and  noted,  too,  the  worn  and  harassed  air  of  his 
son.  Tenderness  welled  up  from  the  heart  that 
had  been  sealed  so  long,  and  with  it  came  pity  and 
a  great  fear  for  the  future.  This  wTas  no  longer 
the  President  of  the  United  States,  but  his  boy,  the 
boy  whose  youth  he  had,  perhaps,  not  made  as 
bright  as  he  should.  He  came  over  to  where 
Philip  stood  gazing  at  the  fast  rising  flames,  and 
touched  him  gently  on  the  arm. 

"Philip."  he  said  very  softly. 

"Yes,  father." 

437 


OAT  SATAN'S  MOUNT.. 

"I  maun  tell  ye  summat." 

"Yes." 

"These  bukes — ye  ken  they  were  aye  meant  for 
you,  and  ye  ken  I  made  ye  pay  for  ye'er  board 
when  that  ye  were  a  lad?  Ye  ken  that?" 

"Of  course,  and  I  was  often  very  much  scared 
when  pay  clay  came  and  I  was  a  few  pennies 
behind." 

"Weel,  I  meant  it  for  ye'er  gude,  Philip." 

"I  do  not  doubt  it." 

"For  ye'er  gude,  lad,"  the  old  man  repeated 
earnestly.  "Ilka  cent  ye  paid  me  went  intae  the 
library — ye'er  library.  That  ye  most  like  didna 
ken,  Philip." 

Tears  filled  the  President's  eyes  and  words  were 
choked  in  his  throat.  To  conceal  the  emotion  for 
which  he  felt  that  species  of  shame  common  to 
men  of  a  strong  race,  he  stooped  and  picked  up 
one  of  the  boxes  from  which  the  books  had  been 
taken,  and  carried  it  to  the  fireplace,  where  he 
emptied  its  contents  of  paper  and  bits  of  broken 
wood  on  the  flames.  Having  mastered  himself,  he 
turned  to  see  his  father's  head  nodding  in  a  chair. 

"Poor  old  man,"  he  said  to  himself.  "Worn 
out,  and  so  am  I — so  am  I." 

He  leaned  against  the  mantel-piece  and  gazed 
down  into  the  fire,  whose  curling  tongues  were 
licking  with  the  savagery  of  a  wild  animal  the  food 
he  had  just  provided.  Again  he  thought  with 
shame  of  that  other  and  larger  conflagration  in 
which  the  passions  of  men  had  played  their  part. 
And,  as  the  flames  died  down  and  left  a  red  and 
glowing  mass  behind,  he  wondered  if  so  would  the 
excitement  of  a  half-crazed  people. 

Then  something  that  surely  was  not  meant  for 
438 


"ON   SATAN'S   MOUNT' 

fire  caught  his  eye.  Among  the  ruddy  embers 
were  the  dark  covers  of  a  book,  stretched  out  as  if 
in  mute  appeal  for  rescue.  With  the  inborn  and 
highly  trained  love  for  the  printed  page,  he 
stooped  and  dashed  his  hand  into  the  grate,  pull 
ing  the  volume,  a  charred  and  blackened  mass, 
upon  the  hearthstone. 

To  seize  a  vase  from  the  mantel,  and  pour  its 
contents,  flowers  and  all,  upon  the  object  he  had 
saved  was  but  the  work  of  an  instant.  He  glanced 
toward  his  father  with  almost  child-like  pertur 
bation. 

"Fast  asleep,"  he  murmured  thankfully.  "If  he 
knew  it,  he'd  almost  want  to  chastise  me.  It  must 
have  been  in  the  box  I  emptied  into  the  fire.  I 
wonder  what  book  it  is." 

He  picked  up  the  warm,  moist  volume  and  car 
ried  it  to  the  shaded  lamp.  The  ruin  was  pathetic 
and  complete — no,  not  ciuite  complete,  he  saw,  for 
one  poor,  flame-seared  page  still  remained  in  part, 
and  on  it  he  read  these  words : 

"  And  the  devil,  taking  Him  up  into  an  high  mountain,  shewed 
unto  Him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  in  a  moment  of  time. 

"  And  the  devil  said  unto  Him,  All  this  power  will  I  give  thee, 
and  the  glory  of  them:  for  that  is  delivered  unto  me;  and  to 
whomsoever  I  will  I  give  it. 

"If  thou  therefore  wilt  worship  me,  all  shall  be  thine. 

"  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan :  for  it  is  written,  Thou  shalt — ' 

His  trembling  fingers  turned  over  the  blackened 
cover.  There,  in  a  hand  of  almost  ghostly  deli 
cacy,  were  the  faint  words:  "Mary  Craig,  Her 
Bible."  Like  a  voice  from  the  tomb  of  the  buried 
years  the  words  seemed  to  sound  afar  off. 

439 


Again  he  read  the  fragment  of  the  page  slowly, 
and  as  slowly  repeated  aloud : 

"  'And  said  unto  him,  Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan.'  ' 

With  staring  eyeballs  he  stood  there,  holding 
the  sacred  relic  before  him.  Like  a  man  con 
demned  to  die,  he  seemed  to  hear  the  minutes  rush 
past  with  actual  sound.  Could  nothing  stop  them, 
these  inexorable  masters  of  human  destiny? 
Would  no  power  grant  him  a  reprieve,  just  a  little 
space  of  time  for  thought,  for  the  putting  of  him 
self  right  with  his  own  soul  and  the  demands  of 
heaven?  He  groaned  aloud  in  his  agony. 

"Eh — Philip,  lad,  what's  the  matter?"  muttered 
his  father,  awakened  by  the  sound.  He  started  up 
in  affright  as  he  saw  the  rigid  face  of  his  son. 

"Philip!"  he  said  sharply. 

"Yes,"  was  the  reply,  but  the  voice  was  that  of  a 
man  held  by  a  trance. 

"What  ails  ye,  Philip  ?    Wrhat- 

"I  have  been  away,  far  away, — on  Satan's 
mount."  The  solemn  words  and  the  still,  drawn 
face  struck  a  chill  to  the  old  man's  heart.  Was  his 
son,  his  strong,  splendid  Philip,  going  mad? 

But  presently  the  younger  man  came  to  him  and 
gently  put  the  remains  of  the  book  in  his  lap. 

"Look,  father,"  he  said  gently. 

Horrified,  Angus  saw  the  pitiful  wreck  of  the 
familiar  Bible,  the  most  intimate  and  precious 
memento  of  his  idolized  wife.  His  face  grew  stern 
with  the  shocking  discovery. 

"Ye'er  mither's  gude  book,  Philip, — in  the  fire !" 
he  said. 

"I  saved  it  from  the  fire;  perhaps  it  will — oh, 
father,  father !" 

440 


"ON   SATAN'S   MOUNT" 

The  long  strain  of  the  bitter  conflict,  the  terrible 
disappointment,  the  message  from  the  flames, 
broke  the  man  down  utterly,  and  like  a  boy — yet 
as  he  had  never  done  in  boyhood  days — Philip 
Craig,  the  President,  knelt  at  his  father's  knees  and 
sobbed  aloud.  Here,  and  for  the  first  time,  he 
made  a  shrine  for  his  bruised  and  wearied  soul  and 
felt  no  restraint. 

Old  Angus  stroked  his  son's  head  with  womanly 
gentleness  and  crooned  over  him  as  over  a  child. 

"My  poor  bairn,  my  bonny  Philip,"  he  said. 
"Dinna  ye  grieve  so  sair.  There  is  no  fau't  in  ye; 
the  ithers  hae  done  the  harm." 

But  Philip  refused  to  be  comforted,  at  least  till 
he  had  poured  out  his  story  of  struggle,  of  ex 
pected  triumphs  for  his  "people,"  of  grief  at  their 
violence  and  the  sudden  new  light  that  had  shone 
in  upon  his  mind.  Nor  did  his  wise  old  confessor 
break  in  upon  him  until  the  whole  had  been  told. 

"I  did  what  I  thought  best  for  the  people,  for 
the  country"  he  concluded  in  abject  self-abase 
ment,  "but  do  two  wrongs  ever  make  a  right? 
Have  T  not  played  the  part  of  a  sophist?  How  am 
I  better  than  John  Norton  when  I  proclaim  my 
self  the  arbiter  of  the  destiny  of  others,  when,  by 
rousing  men's  passions  by  appealing  to  their  self- 
interest,  I  jeopardize  the  future  peace  and  prosper 
ity  of  the  nation?  Like  Norton  I  have  been  borne 
headlong  by  a  self-created  torrent  of  ambition.  I 
exulted  in  power,  I  thought,  because  it  would 
benefit  others.  I  would  destroy  in  the  effort  to 
create." 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  overcome  by  the  bit 
terness  of  his  own  denunciation,  and  again  felt  his 


441 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

father's  soft  hands  resting  upon  his  head  as  with 
a  blessing. 

"Oh,  father,  father,"  he  burst  forth  passionately, 
"I  have  been  tempted,  and  to-night  I  yielded  at  the 
vision  of  the  'kingdoms  of  the  world.'  I  have  said 
in  my  heart :  'I  arn  the  law ;  I  shall  rule ;  I  shall  be 
obeyed.'  I,  who  have  preached  for  years  of  the 
rights  of  the  people,  would  have  taken  their  rights 
away.  And  now — now  I  am  brought  low." 

And  thus  the  father  and  the  son  sat,  until  the 
cold  and  feeble  light  of  dawn  stole  in  at  the  win 
dow  and  gave  an  unearthly  pallor  to  the  lamp, 
and  an  added  wanness  to  both  their  faces.  In 
those  hours  of  supreme  self-contempt  and  at 
tempted  consolation  and  encouragement,  the  two 
found  at  last  the  holiness  of  kinship. 

At  sunrise  Gen.  MacMahon,  in  full  uniform,  and 
with  a  countenance  as  fresh  and  rosy  as  if  loss  of 
sleep  were  a  tonic,  arrived  at  the  White  House, 
accompanied  by  a  mounted  staff. 

"The  President  wishes  to  see  you  in  his  library," 
he  was  told. 

When  he  entered  the  room  in  response  to  a  low 
reply  to  his  knock,  he  saw  that  which,  hardened 
soldier  as  he  was,  brought  mist  across  his  eyes. 
There  in  a  chair,  asleep,  was  Angus  Craig,  deep 
peace  upon  his  face,  while  the  President,  seated  by 
his  side,  held  his  father's  hand  in  his  own. 

"Speak  softly,  please,  General,"  he  said,  "my 
father  is  an  old  man — and  wearied,  and  I  do  not 
want  to  wake  him." 

To  MacMahon  the  son  looked  the  older  and 
more  wearied  of  the  two,  but  it  was  not  for  him  to 
speak  his  thoughts.  In  a  whisper  he  asked : 

"Your  orders,  Mr.  President?" 
442 


"ON   SATAN'S   MOUNT" 

"You  will  remove  your  soldiers  from  the  Capitol 
and  disperse  the  Army  of  the  East  to  its  usual  sta 
tions.  Congress  will  meet  in  extraordinary  session 
this  afternoon." 

All  the  case-hardened  old  warrior's  ingrained 
homage  for  discipline  could  not  prevent  a  start  at 
this  astounding  information.  He  opened  his 
mouth  to  speak,  but  the  President  raised  a  warn 
ing  hand,  and  looked  tenderly  at  the  slumbering 
figure  before  him. 

"Very  well,  Mr.  President,"  the  General  said  in 
a  low  tone ;  then  he  bowed  and  went  out  to  execute 
the  orders  he  had  received  in  such  surprising 
fashion. 

"Curious,  curious,"  he  muttered  as  he  descended 
the  stairs.  "I  could  have  sworn  that  when  he 
raised  his  hand  I  saw  in  it  the  charred  remains  of 
a  book.  In  heaven's  name  what  does  it  all  mean  ?" 


443 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

THE  NEW  CABINET. 

•*  TTAVE  the  newspapers  arrived,  Mr.  Trent?" 
"I   believe   so,   Mr.   President.      I   will 
bring  them  in." 

Philip  Craig  sat  at  the  great  table  in  the  Cabinet 
Room  engrossed  in  labor,  and  the  sun  was  not  yet 
an  hour  high.  If  his  face  was  pinched  and  gray  it 
was  from  physical  causes  now,  for  on  it  was  a  look 
of  spiritual  calm  that  had  long  been  a  stranger 
there. 

Philip  seized  the  papers  eagerly  and  ran  his  eye 
over  the  black  headlines  on  their  first  pages.  A 
great  sigh  of  relief,  in  which  there  was  surprise, 
too,  came  from  his  lips  as  he  saw  that  every  journal 
had  treated  the  matter  of  the  "Embargo  Riots,"  as 
they  were  long  known,  with  unlooked-for  con 
servatism,  dwarfing  rather  than  magnifying  their 
importance. 

In  their  editorial  utterances  they  gave  still  more 
comfort  to  the  President,  absolving  entirely  the 
People's  Congress  and  the  class  it  represented  from 
any  responsibility  for  the  outbreak,  holding  that 
it  was  a  sporadic  and  natural  manifestation  of  the 
effect  of  public  feeling  on  the  ruffianly  element  of 
the  several  cities  where  trouble  had  occurred. 

"Thank  God  for  the  press,  after  all,"  exclaimed 
Philip,  fervently.  "And  yet  how  little  they  know 
of  the  facts.  But  it  is  better  so — much  better." 

444 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

Before  long  his  work  was  interrupted  by  the 
cards  of  a  perfect  host  of  reporters  and  correspond 
ents,  who  swarmed  about  the  White  House  as  if 
they  could  wring  information  from  its  very  walls 
and  doors.  The  gentlemen  of  the  press  certainly 
had  much  visual  food  for  reflection  and  guess 
work,  for  messengers  were  ever  coming  and  going 
throughout  the  early  forenoon,  and  men  whose 
very  names  meant  importance  were  seen  entering 
the  building,  to  emerge  with  events  writ  large 
upon  their  faces. 

Among  these  callers  were  several  of  the  senators 
who  had  been  most  bitter  in  their  hostility  to  the 
President,  and  from  this  fact  the  newspaper  men 
argued  a  compromise  of  some  sort.  But  they  re 
frained  from  sending  out  conjectures,  for  the  most 
unthinking  of  them  felt  that  at  so  critical  a  time 
there  must  be  facts  or  nothing. 

For  a  rime  the  President  firmly  declined  to 
receive  any  of  the  journalists  or  to  give  them  word 
as  to  what  was  happening.  But,  shortly  before 
noon,  he  sent  Mr.  Trent  to  the  correspondent's 
ante-room  with  the  announcement  that  he  had  a 
statement  for  the  press,  and  requested  them  to 
choose  one  of  their  number  to  receive  it.  Landor, 
the  agent  of  the  Associated  Press,  was  unani 
mously  selected,  as  being  in  the  best  position  to 
forward  the  plain  statement  to  the  papers  they 
served ;  this  they  could  embellish  later  as  seemed 
individually  fitting. 

The  President  was  alone  when  Landor  entered 
the  Cabinet  Room,  and  he  rose  cordially  to  greet 
the  man  whom  he  had  always  liked  and  trusted. 

"I  am  glad  you  have  been  chosen,  Mr.  Landor," 
he  said,  "for  I  wish  through  you  and  the  press  to 

445 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

take  the  people  into  my  confidence.  For  the  sake 
of  restoring  public  tranquillity  as  speedily  as  pos 
sible  I  propose  that  the  newspapers  shall  antici 
pate,  semi-officially,  so  to  speak,  my  policy.  To 
issue  a  personal  and  formal  statement  of  intent 
might  result,  in  this  time  of  excitement,  in  mis 
apprehension.  I  prefer,  at  all  events,  that  you 
gentlemen  should  tell  the  facts  as  if  gathered  by 
you  and  not  dictated  by  me.  You  comprehend?" 

Landor  bowed  his  understanding  of  the  affair, 
and  his  face  was  instinct  with  sympathy  and  inter 
est  as  he  prepared  to  transcribe  for  the  world  the 
most  important  news  he  had  ever  gathered. 

"I  can  state  the  case  in  very  few  words,"  the 
President  went  on.  "I  shall  call — in  fact,  have 
already  called  by  personal  messages  to  each  mem 
ber — an  immediate  extraordinary  session  of  Con 
gress.  The  embargo  bill  will  be  enacted  at  once, 
and  I  have  absolute  assurances  that  all  the  legisla 
tion  affecting  the  interests  of  the  wage-earners  of 
the  nation  that  has  been  introduced  at  this  year's 
session,  will  be  adopted,  with  the  possible  excep 
tion  of  the  arbitration  bill.  Even  that  may  be 
passed  in  a  modified  form." 

"A  victory,  a  tremendous  victory,"  thought 
Landor,  as  he  worked  away  at  his  notes  with  the 
utmost  care.  And  yet  the  calm  voice,  in  which 
there  was  even  a  touch  of  listlessness,  of  dull  un 
concern,  was  not  that  of  a  man  who  had  triumphed 
over  his  enemies,  and  whose  dearest  hopes  were 
about  to  be  realized.  But  perhaps  it  was  but 
another  phase  of  this  strange  character,  and  not 
to  be  taken  for  what  would  be  its  face  value  in 
another. 

"I  have  been  criticised,  Mr.  Landor,"  said 
446 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

Craig,  "I  have  even  been  accused  of  potential 
tyranny  because  I  have  not  named  a  cabinet.  I 
have  not  done  so  for  very  simple  reasons.  The 
men  I  could  have  had  two  days  ago  my  enemies 
would  have  denounced  as  demagogues;  others 
whom  I  would  have  liked  would  not  have  served 
in  my  cabinet — as  matters  stood  then." 

Landor  looked  up  with  keen  appreciation  in  his 
eyes;  he  understood,  and  understanding,  honored 
the  President  more  than  evef. 

"To-day  it  is  different.  I  have  appealed  to  men, 
not  to  partisans.  The  cabinet  I  have  selected  is 
composed  of  citizens  whose  public  service  in  the 
past  has  entitled  them  to  the  honors  of  retirement. 
But  each  is  a  Cincinnatus,  and  I  believe  that  none 
of  them  will  refuse  to  take  up  the  burden  again  for 
the  sake  of  the  country.  In  fact,  the  replies  I  have 
already  received  to  my  duplicate  telegrams  prove 
that  I  am  not  over-confident." 

He  pointed  with  a  certain  glow  of  pride  to  a 
little  pile  of  yellow  sheets  that  lay  upon  the  desk. 
Here  at  least  were  the  fruits  of  a  work  in  which 
there  could  be  no  blemish  of  regret,  no  taint  of  any 
interest  save  the  nation's. 

"I  shall  announce  my  cabinet  through  you,"  said 
the  President.  "These  are  the  names." 

Notwithstanding  his  long  training  in  the  pro 
fession  that  seeks  to  know  no  possible  shock  to  the 
nerves,  Landor  heard  the  reading  of  the  names 
with  more  excitement  than  he  had  known  since  the 
salad  days  of  his  first  assignment. 

The  list  was,  indeed,  extraordinary.  It  con 
tained  the  names  of  former  cabinet  officers  of  both 
parties ;  of  a  great  senator  whose  learning  and  up 
rightness  had  made  him  known  all  over  the  world ; 

447 


OAr  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

of  two  retired  congressmen  with  unstained  records 
of  long  service:  of  a  noble  philanthropist  who  was 
still  a  man  of  affairs;  of  a  famous  sociologist  who 
had  studied  the  masses  to  effective  purpose. 

Great  as  was  the  personnel  of  this  new  official 
family  for  the  President,  eminently  fitting  as  were 
the  men  for  the  tasks  to  which  they  were  called,  it 
was  evident  that  they  had  been  chosen  chiefly 
because  of  the  confidence  they  would  inspire  in  the 
minds  of  all  good  citizens  throughout  the  land. 
As  a  general  is  sometimes  appointed  for  the  effect 
of  his  mere  personality  on  the  morale  of  the  army, 
so  were  these  great  commanders  of  peace  named 
by  the  chief  executive.  If  the  move  were  sensa 
tional,  it  had,  at  least,  the  sanction  of  splendid 
precedent. 

Landor  ran  his  pencil  down  the  list,  and  stopped 
suddenly. 

''You  have  not  mentioned — " 

"The  secretary  of  industry  and  the  secretary  of 
state,"  interrupted  the  President.  "They  are  im 
portant,  are  they  not,  for  one  w7ill  be  my  successor 
while  the  other" — he  smiled  with  a  sadness  that 
somehow  affected  Landor  like  a  strain  of  mournful 
music — "the  other  may  be.  The  secretary  of  in 
dustry  will  be  Adoniram  Bentley.  You,  who  know 
him  and  his  works,  know  why  he  is  chosen.  The 
identity  of  the  secretary  of  state  will  not  be  known 
until — well,  until  he  has  accepted." 

The  newspaper  man,  his  sense  of  professional 
duty  again  aroused,  rose  to  leave  with  his  wonder 
fully  rich  "copy."  To  him  came  the  President, 
and,  placing  both  arms  on  his  shoulders,  gazed 
into  his  face  with  a  sad  smile  that  Landor  never 
forgot. 

448 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

"Is  it — a  good  'story,'  Landor?  A  pity,  isn't  it, 
that  it's  not  an  'exclusive.'  Tell  me,  Landor," — 
and  the  grip  on  the  newspaper  man's  shoulders 
tightened — "not  as  journalist  to  President,  but  as 
one  man  to  another:  have  I  done  well?  Will 
America  be  at  rest?  Will  the  people  be  satisfied?" 

"They  will,  Philip,  they  will ;  they  cannot  be 
otherwise,"  replied  the  other  with  intense  earnest 
ness,  grasping  the  President's  hand  with  an  admi 
ration  and  a  depth  of  respect  he  had  felt  for  few 
men. 

As  he  passed  into  the  ante-room  Landor  saw 
Luke  Ford's  spare  form  standing  near  a  window, 
as  if  the  mind  inside  it  were  engaged  in  deep 
thought.  Ford  could  scarcely  be  said  to  have 
come  unscathed  through  the  warfare  of  the  night 
before,  for  his  ecclesiastical  coat  was  disfigured  by 
stains  and  scorches,  and  his  hat-brim  sagged 
mournfully,  as  if  it  had  borne  weight  never  in 
tended  for  such  an  article.  One  eye  had  a  sugges 
tion  of  puffiness,  and  altogether  the  leader  of  the 
men  of  "action"  looked  distinctly  seedy. 

Landor  shook  his  head  dubiously  at  the  sight  of 
the  visitor. 

"I  had  forgotten — the  People's  Congress,"  he 
said  to  himself.  "How  will  he  deal  with  that?" 

In  course  of  time  came  Ford's  turn  to  reach  the 
President.  He  limped  in  with  a  shame-faced  air 
which  did  not  accord  with  the  attempted  good-fel 
lowship  with  which  he  extended  his  hand. 

"Good  morning,  Philip — " 

"  'Mr.  President,'  Mr.  Ford,  "said  the  executive. 
gravely.  His  caller,  -abashed,  looked  about  for  a 
chair.  "No,  you  need  not  sit.  What  I  have  to  say 

449 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

is  better  said — and  heard — standing.     The  Peo 
ple's  Congress  is  still  in  session?" 

"Yes,  when  I  left.    I  don't  know—" 

"But  you  do  know.  You  know  that  it  awaits  the 
report  of  your  interview  with  me.  Your  report 
must  be  that  the  congress  adjourn  and  its  dele 
gates  proceed  peaceably  and  immediately  to  their 
homes.'' 

"I — I — wny  should  I  take  such  a  message  ?" 

"You  must  take  it,  and  you  must  add  that  you, 
and  those  who,  with  you,  have  been  the  extremists 
among  the  delegates,  realize  at  last  your  fatal 
error:  that  force  is  a  necessity  in  this  republic." 

Ford  shifted  his  long  legs  nervously,  and 
plunged  his  hand  into  his  pocket,  whence  it 
emerged  with  a  plug  of  his  black  tobacco.  He 
raised  it  to  his  mouth. 

"You  must  do  this — at  once,  sir,"  continued  the 
President  more  sternly  than  Ford  had  ever  heard 
him  speak.  Anger  convulsed  his  dark  face,  and 
the  hand  that  bore  the  tobacco  fell  to  his  side  like 
lead. 

"By  God,  Craig !"  he  shouted,  "I  see  what  it  is. 
It's  as  I  feared.  You're  a  quitter." 

"No,"  replied  Craig,  calmly.  "I  have  just  begun 
— just  begun  to  know  the  truth:  that  power,  to  its 
last  particle,  is  duty." 

"Tell  the  congress  yourself!"  blustered  Ford, 
gaining  courage  from  the  President's  serenity. 
"Tell  them  you  have  broken  your  pledge." 

"I  have  not  broken  it,  but  they  have  broken 
theirs  to  me.  Mine  will  be  fulfilled." 

The  lank  agitator  turned  to  go,  and  on  the  way 
to  the  door  flung  his  last  defiance  over  his 
shoulder. 

45° 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

"I  won't  bear  your  message,  Craig,"  he  burst 
forth.  "You  can't  bulldoze  me!  I — " 

"Stop  there,  Ford,"  rang  out  the  President's 
voice  with  a  tone  of  authority  that  cowed  his  caller 
into  silence.  "I  will  give  you  one  hour.  If  at  the 
end  of  that  time  the  delegates  are  not  dispersing, 
I  shall  order  your  arrest." 

"Arrest!"  sneered  Luke.  "Me?  You  don't 
dare  to!  On  what  charge,  pray?"  His  insolent 
laugh  was  of  short  life. 

"On  the  charge  of  arson." 

"Arson?     I?" 

"Yes,  you.  I  was  within  twenty  feet  of  you  last 
night  when  you  seized  a  torch  and  cried :  'On  to 
Norton's ;  smoke  out  the  plutocrat !'  ' 

Ford's  sallow  face  grew  white  as  marble,  and  he 
almost  staggered  against  the  wall.  Clutching  his 
battered  hat  in  both  hands,  he  went  slowly  out 
without  another  word. 

This  episode  had  scarcely  faded  from  the  day's 
doings,  when  Secretary  Trent  brought  the  Presi 
dent  a  telegram.  He  read  it  twice,  folded  it  care 
fully  and  placed  it  in  an  inside  pocket,  then  turned 
to  his  secretary  with  a  smile  of  content. 

"My  cabinet  is  complete,"  he  said.  "The  secre 
tary  of  state  that  is  to  be  accepts.  You  wished 
to  ask  me  something,  Mr.  Trent?" 

"The  Nortons  are  about  to  leave,  and  Mrs.  Nor 
ton  wishes  to  see  you." 

Mrs.  Norton !  Then  \vhat  of  Helen  ?  Would 
she,  could  she  go  away  with  last  night's  enigmati 
cal  words  for  her  farewell?  He  could  pursue  the 
thought  no  further. 

"I  will  see  her  at  once,"  he  said  to  Trent.  "Is 
Mr.  Norton  able  to  travel  ?" 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Physically  he  seems  quite  himself,  Dr.  Lewis 
says,  but  he  will  never  be  able  to  undertake  busi 
ness  cares  again." 

During  the  few  moments  of  waiting,  Philip  sat 
at  his  desk,  his  forehead  resting  on  his  upturned 
palm,  and  thought  moodily  of  the  parting  that  was 
so  near.  And  as  they  say  a  drowning  man's  life  is 
flashed  in  incredibly  swift  but  orderly  panorama 
before  his  mental  sight,  so  did  the  great  salient  fea 
tures  of  Craig's  existence  roll  by  in  exact  sequence. 
His  boyhood,  his  shifting  for  himself,  his  first  awed 
glimpse  of  Norton,  his  engagement  in  a  humble 
place,  his  climbing  as  with  seven-leagued  boots  to 
the  heights  of  power,  his  love  for  Helen,  his  break 
ing  with  the  cold  financial  king,  his  air-castle's  fall, 
his  long  helplessness,  his  rise  to  a  new  strength, 
his  astounding  elevation  to  the  Presidency,  his 
struggle  for  a  principle,  his  grief  and  shame  at  the 
riot,  his  supreme  temptation  and  his  victory — all 
these  things  trooped  past  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye.  And  now — 

"Have  I  been  all  wrong?"  he  murmured  with 
passionate  self-questioning.  "Was  Bentley  right? 
Would  I  have  benefited  the  world  more  to  have 
stood  between  Norton  and— 

A  door  opened  gently,  and  Mrs.  Norton's  sweet 
face  appeared,  pale  and  pathetic,  but  full  of 
friendly  light.  And  behind  her  was  another. 

"She  Jias  come,  after  all,"  Philip  thought  with 
a  great  throb  of  joy.  Parting?  Perhaps;  but  that 
might  mean  another  meeting.  Even  tears  are 
sometimes  lovers'  rainbows. 

"I  could  not  go,"  began  Mrs.  Norton,  "without 
expressing  our  deep  gratitude,  Mr.  Pre— 

"Don't,  don't,  Mrs.  Norton,"  broke  in  Philip 
452 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

vehemently,  "I  have  borne  much  of  late,  but  I  am 
human.  Gratitude — from  you — is  more  than  I  can 
endure." 

"We  arc  going  out  west,"  she  continued  with 
out  apparent  notice  of  his  words,  although  her 
own  sufferings  had  made  her  acute  to  the  troubles 
of  others,  "to  the  farm  we  have  always  kept — 
where  we  first  met.  Perhaps  there — " 

The  thought  of  the  silent,  nerveless,  beclouded 
man  in  another  room  choked  her  utterance  and 
she  turned  her  head.  Philip  felt  inexpressible  pity 
for  this  kindly  woman,  who,  after  all,  had  borne 
the  heaviest  burden.  He  stepped  to  her  side  and 
encircled  her  shoulder  with  a  caressing  arm.  She 
turned  her  brimming  eyes  to  his. 

"I  never  knew  my  mother,"  he  said,  "may  I — ' 

The  eloquent  face  was  raised  to  his,  and  he 
kissed  the  trembling  lips  as  one  kisses  some  sacred 
thing.  She  bowed  her  head  on  his  shoulder,  and 
wept  softly  without  restraint.  Thus  he  led  her  to 
the  door,  and  paused.  Helen  was  close  behind. 

"You  are  going,  too — Helen?"  he  asked,  in  a 
voice  so  low  that  he  did  not  know  if  she  had  heard. 

"Yes,  Philip." 

"I  shall — see  you  again?" 

"Yes,  if  you  wish — when  my  duty  is — is  ended." 

He  looked  at  her  pure,  beautiful  profile  with 
dimmed  eyes,  and  understood.  But  of  a  sudden, 
with  the  swiftness  of  an  alighting  bird,  her  lips 
brushed  the  hand  that  lay  upon  her  mother's 
shoulder  and  he  felt  the  thrill  of  a  kiss. 

Then  mother  and  daughter  went  silently  down 
the  heavily  carpeted  stairs  and  were  gone. 

^f.  >£.  2}c  5|c  yf.  yf. 

That  day  the  People's  Congress,  following  the 
453 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

advice  contained  in  an  especially  earnest  speech  by 
Luke  Ford,  adjourned  sine  die.  The  Congress  of 
the  United  States  assembled  in  extraordinary  ses 
sion,  and  before  the  majority  of  the  United  Men 
of  America's  delegates  reached  their  homes,  had 
passed  the  embargo  bill  and  several  other  measures 
calculated  to  relieve  the  pressure  upon  the  masses. 

There  were  not  wanting  the  customary  cynical 
gentlemen  to  assert  that  the  Senate  acquiesced  in 
all  these  things  because  its  backbone  had  departed 
with  the  retirement  of  John  Peter  Norton.  How 
ever,  the  popular  belief  and  joy  were  so  great  that 
few  cared  to  look  for  motives  beneath  the  bless 
ings  of  fact. 

The  removal  of  the  palsied  hand  of  Norton  from 
the  lever  of  his  colossal  financial  machine  caused 
its  inevitable  flurry  in  the  market.  Values  were 
swept  away  in  a  day,  and  an  enormous  deprecia 
tion  of  everything  with  which  he  had  been  con 
nected  followed  most  naturally.  Rumor  said  that 
the  man  who  had  built  the  fallen  house  of  cards 
had  been  ruined  in  the  crash.  At  any  rate,  the 
shaking  down  of  the  market  resulted  in  ultimate 
good,  and  the  "Norton  era"  of  inflation  and  over 
capitalization  passed  away  unhonored,  if  not 
unsung. 

President  Craig's  new  cabinet  appointments 
were  promptly  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  and  this 
action  was  followed  by  the  nomination  of  a  secre 
tary  of  state.  At  the  announcement  of  his  name 
the  country  and  the  world  applauded.  He  was  a 
man  who  had  twice  served  the  nation  in  its  highest 
place  with  the  utmost  honor  to  himself  and  it,  and 
who,  in  his  semi-retirement,  had  come  to  be  looked 
upon  as  the  wise  counsellor,  the  unpartisan  Nestor 

454 


THE  NEW  CABINET 

who  knew  how  to  point  out,  as  he  had  known  how 
to  tread,  the  path  of  truth  and  righteousness. 

On  the  day  following,  Philip  Craig  resigned 
from  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States.  The 
proclamation  he  issued  to  the  people  closed  with 
these  words: 

"While  I  feel  that  my  brief  term  in  an  authority 
which  fell  to  me  by  chance  has  not  been  without 
benefit  to  the  nation,  I  believe  that  I  should  resign 
my  office  into  the  keeping  of  a  man  who  has  twice 
been  honored  by  the  people  through  their  ballot- 
box,  and  whom  it  has  since  honored  still  more  in 
his  retirement.  ...  In  my  endeavors  for  the  peo 
ple  I  loved,  in  my  battle  for  'Weakerdom/  I  have 
made  mistakes,  but  no  error  of  mine  was  so  great 
as  that  committed  when,  for  a  time,  I  forgot  that 
I  was  only  a  man  face  to  face  with  that  most 
Satanic  and  insidious  of  tempters — Power." 


455 


CHAPTER   XLVI. 
'NEATH  THE  EVENING  STAR. 

THE  evening  sun  was  painting  a  rosy  flush 
upon  the  white  minarets  of  the  Sierras,  as  a 
little  group  of  three  sat  upon  the  low  veranda 
of  the  plain  farmhouse  of  a  California  ranch.  One, 
a  large  featured,  dull-eyed  man,  was  half  reclining 
in  a  great  easy  chair,  staring  vacantly  at  the  far  off 
mountains  whence  had  sprung  his  wealth.  Once  or 
twice  he  nodded  his  head  gently  as  if  in  com 
munion  with  the  snowy  summits,  but  he  spoke  no 
word.  He  lived  in  the  silence  of  memory  and  his 
own  thoughts. 

Near  him  sat  a  gray-haired,  placid-faced  woman 
working  some  beautiful  embroidery,  and  just  be 
yond  a  fair-haired  girl,  in  the  prime  of  loveliness, 
was  bending  over  a  book.  Only  the  call  of  belated 
birds  and  the  sighing  of  a  gentle  breeze  disturbed 
the  silence. 

"Come,  John,"  said  the  older  lady  at  length, 
"the  night  air  is  getting  chilly.  You  had  better 
go  in." 

Like  a  child  the  man  allowed  himself  to  be 
helped  to  his  feet,  and  into  the  house.  As  his 
shuffling  footsteps  were  lost  to  sound,  the  girl 
threw  down  her  book  and  looked  dreamily  into  the 
empurpled  west,  where  fantastic  clouds  were  build 
ing  their  enchanted  city. 

The  steady  beating  of  hoofs,  coming  nearer  and 
456 


'NEATH    THE    EVENING    STAR 

nearer,  roused  her  from  her  reverie,  Soon  two 
horsemen  came  into  view  and  drew  rein  before  the 
veranda. 

"A  letter  for  yer,  Miss  Helen,"  cried  the  younger 
rider,  waving  something  white  in  his  right  hand. 

"Why  Muggsy,"  said  the  girl,  "I  didn't 
know — " 

"Yes;  me  an'  Doc  thought  there  might  be  some- 
thin',  so  we  rode  over  to  Alario — just  a  kind  of 
constitut'nal  gallop,  ye  know." 

The  elder  Bayles  dismounted  with  infinite  cau 
tion,  assisted  by  his  dutiful  son,  and  hobbled  upon 
the  veranda,  consigning  his  "rheumatics"  to  vari 
ous  sorts  of  perdition  the  while. 

"Miss  Helen,"  he  said,  "is  your  mother  around 
handy?  I — I — that  is — I  want  ter  say  somethin' 
to  her,  if  she's  no  objection." 

"Why,  of  course,  Doc,"  returned  Helen,  smil 
ing.  "She  went  into  the  house  with  my  father.  I 
think  she'll  be  out  presently." 

"Thankee,  Miss,"  said  the  old  trainer,  settling 
himself  stiffly  in  a  chair,  "I'll  set,  if  ye  don't  mind." 

While  Helen  was  reading  her  letter,  Mrs.  Nor 
ton  came  from  the  house,  and  "Doc's"  opportunity 
arrived.  But  he  seemed  ill  at  ease  and  curiously 
abashed.  At  length  he  pulled  an  envelope  desper 
ately  from  an  inside  pocket  and  held  it  toward  his 
mistress. 

"It's  somethin'  we  wants  yer  to  see,"  he  blurted. 
"Me  and  Muggsy  writ  to  New  York  a  while  ago 
an'  we've  jest  got  the  answer." 

Mrs.  Norton  took  the  missive  and  drew  from  the 
envelope  a  pink  slip  of  paper.  Her  mild  eyes 
opened  wide  with  astonishment  as  she  saw  its 
import. 

457 


ON  SATAN'S  MOUNT 

"Why — a  certified  check,  and  for  a  large 
amount.  And  made  out  to  me?" 

"Yes'm — that  is — to  you,  yes'm." 

"To  you — yes'rn,"  chimed  in  "Muggsy,"  who 
had  just  returned  from  the  stables. 

"But  the  envelope  is  addressed  to  you.  I — don't 
understand." 

"Well,  Ma'am,"  explained  "Doc"  with  glowing 
face,  "it's  the  American  Handicap  stakes — " 

"That  Mr.  Norton  give  us,"  put  in  the  younger 
Bayles. 

"An'  we  read  how  Mr.  Norton's  money  was — 
gone,  so  we — we — " 

"We  never  had  no  right  to  the  stakes  anyway," 
exclaimed  "Muggsy." 

"An'  we  kep'  'em  in  case  he  should  want  'em 
back,"  concluded  "Doc,"  with  the  air  of  having 
settled  a  grave  question. 

Mrs.  Norton  looked  into  the  old  man's  face  with 
an  expression  that  made  him  shift  his  position  and 
fumble  his  hat  nervously.  She  glanced  at  her 
daughter,  who  was  still  reading  her  letter,  and 
then  turned  again  towards  the  father  and  son. 

"You  are  dear,  good  souls,  both  of  you,"  she 
said  with  a  radiant  smile,  "but  really  the  money  is 
not  needed." 

"Then  ye  hain't  lost  yer  money,"  exclaimed 
"Doc"  almost  incredulously,  as  he  took  the  ex 
tended  check  mechanically. 

"Oh,  no,  not  in  the  sense  you  mean.  Of  course 
there  was  a  great  depreciation,  but  we  have  far 
more  than  we  shall  ever  need." 

"But — Mr.  Haven?"  persisted  old  Bayles. 

"Mr.  Haven  betrayed  his  trust  and  was  an  em 
bezzler,"  she  replied,  "but  he  is  a  fugitive  and  can 

458 


'NEATH    THE    EVENING    STAR 

never  return  to  America.     Nor  did  he  ruin  us,  by 
any  means." 

"She  ain't  lost  it,  Muggsy,"  exclaimed  Bayles, 
senior,  shaking  his  head  slowly.  "Ain't  it  too 
bad?" 

"Too  bad,"  echoed  the  son,  thereupon  lapsing 
into  speechlessness,  and  as  the  two  turned  towards 
the  stables  Mrs.  Norton  followed  them  with  eyes 
which  shone  with  suspicious  moisture. 

The  glow  of  sunset  had  faded  to  a  dull,  tremu 
lous  suggestion  of  color  in  the  west,  but  its  glory 
was  bequeathed  to  earth  in  the  sparkling  silver  of 
an  evening  star.  Helen  Norton  looked  up  from 
her  letter  and  to  the  resplendent  planet,  her  face 
lighted  by  something  that  neither  sun  nor  star 
could  call  into  being.  Her  mother  noted  the 
beauty  of  the  new  look,  and  saw,  too,  the  bit  of 
paper  in  her  hand. 

"Is  it  from — him  ?"  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"What  does  he  say,  my  dear?" 

"He  and  his  father  are  going  to  Australia." 

"To  Australia?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl  gently,  "to  study  the  condi 
tions  there,  he  says,  as  well  as  for  complete  change 
of  scene.  He  will  be  gone  about  a  year." 

"And  then?" 

"He  asks  if  he  may  come  to — to  me." 

"Helen!" 

Night  spread  its  dusky  wings  over  the  farm 
house  and  blotted  out  the  world  from  the  two 
women  who  were  gently  sobbing  in  one  another's 
arms.  But  each  knew  that  smiles  were  mingled 
with  the  tears. 

THE  END. 

459 


Will    be  issued  September  8,  1903 

A  Ranch  Story 
A  Reo!  Ranch  Girl 


MISS     FRANCIS     PARKER 

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life  of  the  12  mile  long  ranches  up  among  the  Bear's 
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father's  ranches  in  northern  Dakota,  and  on  the  Indian 
Reservation  in  southern  Dakota  with  her  uncle,  an  Indian 
agent.  She  has  varied  the  excitement  of  breaking  her 
own  bucking  bronchos  to  saddle,  by  bringing  the  best 
tutors  from  the  east  to  prepare  her  for  college. 

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IN     PREPARATION 

"LOVE 

STORIES 
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99 


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